


Oh won’t you stay with me (because you’re all I need)

by mjonesing (klassmartin)



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: 35+35-1, Angst, Author to add tags when she feels like it, Canon Compliant, Dirty Talk, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Peter Parker is a thot, Porn With Plot, Smut, Thotumn, Yes I changed the description, almost a threesome, but if you weren’t expecting that from me then you don’t know me very well, facesitting, im just here to hurt my favs and then put them back together, listen I might have forgotten the point of this month of thotness, shockingly, webplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:14:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27367114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klassmartin/pseuds/mjonesing
Summary: “You deserve everything, MJ, but at the very least, you deserve better than this.”“I don’t care,” she almost sobs, panting against the waves of intensity in her body and in her chest. “I just want you.”—————Or: They can’t resist each other, even as it all crumbles around them.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 225
Kudos: 159
Collections: Peter Parker's Thotumn 2020





	1. And baby we’ll be at the drive in

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i can't love you (like i want to)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352456) by [MichellesBoh (michellesbohh)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/michellesbohh/pseuds/MichellesBoh). 



> Me, last month: i’M nOt TaKiNg PaRt In ThOtUmN!
> 
> Me now, a fool: here is a fic for ALL. THE. PROMPTS.
> 
> Anyway, so I attempted to be a eager reader of thotumn but then I got a peak at my boo’s fic about Peter and MJ dirty talkin’ while he’s on the run and oops. My fingers slipped (on the kEYBOARD YOU DIRTY BUGGER) so if you have any complaints direct them to HER please and thank you. 
> 
> I’m kidding. Go shower her with all the love and adoration that she deserves for putting up with me the past few months. 
> 
> ANYWHO the biggest of thank you’s to @spideysmj for organising this - you’re the best! What a gift we have received.

Midnight has a tight grasp of the room, but she knows he’s there, anyway. It’s in the whisper of a breeze against her flushed skin; a hitch of breath that isn’t hers; the prickly feeling of being watched when she’s supposed to be home alone.

Michelle’s eyes snap open and she’s halfway to standing when she hears it: “Don’t.”

She’s frozen, trying to peer through the inky black to catch even a glimpse of him, but Peter’s shrouded by the shadows. Something twinges in her gut, the way it always does what she thinks about him - a never-ending stream of conscience that is woven into the fabric of her every day - but this time it’s more acute, a stabbing sort of pain at being so close yet still too far.

“But I -”

“Lie back down.” 

It’s only when her body leads her back to her previous spot that she remembers what she’d been doing before the intrusion, her bare thighs tingling as her warm bed sheets slide over her skin.

Michelle refuses to be embarrassed. Out of everyone who could have walked in on her, being caught masturbating by her boyfriend should not be a big deal. Just because she hasn’t seen said boyfriend for many, _many_ months does not mean she has to curl up under the sheets and wait for the ground to swallow her whole.

Instead, she goes over the thousand questions buzzing around her mind like a hungry swarm of bees. Where has he been? Why hasn’t he contacted her in so long? Is he safe? Is he okay?

She doesn’t get to ask any of them, because Peter’s voice is like gravel as he confesses, “I heard you, all the way down the block. _Moaning_ my name.”

Michelle shudders, the thrill of this unexpected moment pulsing between her legs at how truly wrecked he sounds from just one mention of his name.

“You were thinking of me?” His voice cracks and he clears his throat. “While you were touching yourself?”

 _Duh_ , she wants to say with a roll of her eyes, _you are my boyfriend, after all._

“I always think about you,” she says instead in a rush of breath. “Our hands are roughly the same size, so it’s easy to… To pretend.”

“So when your fingers were inside of you, you wanted them to be mine.”

The groan comes without warning, just the thought of his hands touching her making her knees fall slightly apart. “It’s not the same. Every time I just… I end up wanting you even more.”

She fixes her gaze on where the sound of his heavy breathing originates, knowing that his enhanced sight means he can see the soft, deliberate moves as she spreads her legs, finding her courage in the helpless whimper that echoes deliciously in her ears. 

“Touch yourself. Please. For me.”

“You can touch me yourself, you know.” 

But even as she says it, she knows it isn’t true. Whatever the reason is for his fixture in the corner of her room, hidden from the view of the world and herself, his stubborn need to keep everyone safe will keep him rooted to the spot.

“If I touch you, I’ll never be able to leave.”

Every part of her wants to say that he doesn’t have to - she can keep him safe, as long as he’s by her side again - but it’s not fair to put that on him, when the rest of the world is relentless in its need to hurt him. Michelle won’t be another pawn in that cruel game. She cares about him too much to cause him any more suffering. 

Her palms are clammy as they skate from her knees to linger at the tops of her thighs, but she’s surprised to find she’s not nervous; not when it’s Peter watching. She can feel his eyes tracking her every move like another pair of hands and she whimpers with the fresh wave of lust that engulfs her. Her nails scrape across her hip bone. Would she feel his, if this were his hand? How would the rough calluses of his world-worn hands feel in comparison to the soft sweep of her artist’s fingers?

“Tell me,” she whispers into the dark, shifting further down the headboard, “Tell me what your hands would be doing right now.”

“I don’t think my hands would be doing much of anything.” His voice is like crushed velvet to her ears, easing her into the fantasy they create together. “I would kiss you - I’d kiss you everywhere. What I wouldn’t give to know the taste of your skin. Would you let me take my time? Explore every part of you until I knew all the places that make you say my name?”

Goosebumps erupt across her skin, just the thought of his hot breath against her skin making her hips buck against the open air. “Fuck, P- Yes, yes, I’d let you do anything if it meant being with you.”

“I’d run my hands down your chest, over the curve of your waist, taking my time to work out the exact geometric formula for it -”

“Nerd.”

Peter exhales a laugh, and it settles the last of her anxious thoughts.

“Your skin looks so soft. I don’t think I’d ever tire of touching you.” There’s the gentlest of noises, like two pieces of fabric rubbing together, and for half a moment she sees the moonlight reflect off messy curls. Another whimper rips its way out of her chest - finally, visual proof that he is indeed in the room and it’s not just her imagination, so desperate for him that it’s conjured his voice in her moment of indulgence. 

“I’d press myself against you until every part of us was touching, and I’d kiss you until you couldn’t stand to wait anymore. Only then would I let my hands slide between your legs.”

Michelle follows his instructions intently, hissing as her fingers trail through her pubic hair and rest over her labia. She’s infinitely wetter than she’d been in the moments before his arrival, and as a single fingertip trails up from her entrance to her clit, over the pounding of her heart she hears Peter moan quietly. Can he see how much she wants him? Can he smell her arousal, perhaps? She draws an impossibly soft circle around the swollen bundle of nerves that scream for attention, swearing into the thick weight of the night’s air.

“Is that… Is that how much you want me?” Peter’s voice is shot, only the echo of his words finding their way to her ears. “I mean - I guess I should have known; you like me so surely… Being _attracted_ to me in some way isn’t so big of a leap, but… Fuck, you’re so beautiful like this, and always. You just… You have no idea how crazy I am about you.”

Michelle doesn’t find it funny but she laughs. “I think it’s obvious that I have _some_ idea.”

“Tell me,” he whispers desperately, “What would you want me to do?”

“This.” A sigh of relief escapes her as she sinks her middle finger inside. “I want to feel you - all of you - but I want… I want this. I’ve spent so long watching what your hands are capable of and - _fuck -_ I wanna know what they feel like.”

She’s delirious with how turned on she is but she’s clear headed enough to remember the important things. Peter has spent this whole time talking in conjunction but she _knows_ they will have their moment, refusing to speak in anything but definitives. Peter _will_ kiss her one day, he _will_ touch her with all the reverence she deserves after the world is done tearing them apart, and he _will_ be back with her; soon, she hopes, as she withdraws her finger and pushes it back in with another beside it.

“I’ll kiss you, over and over until you’re bored of me or we’ve made up for lost time - whichever comes first. I’ll hold you against me and it’ll feel like - Like completing a puzzle. Fuck, Peter…” 

Michelle heaves in a breath as she throws back her head, back arching as her fingers curl inside of her. Her pacing picks up with every sound she drags from him until her hand moves brutally, insistent in its task as it works her higher. The heel of her hand brushes against her clit and she wants to scream at how good it feels, how it’s not even close to enough - she’ll never be truly satisfied, not until Peter is the one doing this to her instead of lurking at the sidelines.

“I want to feel your fingers easing into me, moving so slowly that I lose my patience and - and I fuck myself down on them - you’ll let me, I know it - you’ll love how I take charge of the moment, getting to watch me, watch them as they disappear inside of me… Peter, I - I’m so close, please, I need -”

“That’s it, that’s what I’ll be waiting for - when you’re begging for me,” he says in that husky tone that only drives her closer to the brink. He’s panting now but she can’t think of anything outside of the edge she’s clinging to, knowing he isn’t finished with her yet. “Use your other hand; show me how you like it.”

Michelle eagerly relinquishes her deathgrip on the sheets and slips her hand down her stomach until it nudges her clit, causing her to gasp so loudly she has to pause for a moment in case her nosy upstairs neighbour heard. Peter grunts out an assurance that she’s okay and can continue, and it’s like his permission is all she needs; the last piece of her self-control snaps, and Michelle’s hands work at a punishing tempo in a way that has her choking on the sounds of her pleasure.

“Peter, I need - I’m - _Please_ -”

“What do you need? I’ll do anything.”

It’s not true but she can’t bring herself to care. “Say my name. You haven’t - I need to hear you say it, Peter, I can’t -”

“I’m sorry,” he says, something heavier in his tone, like he’s apologising for more than just this, but then - “Come for me, Michelle. Let me see you.”

She squeezes her eyes shut and pictures him above her, a cocky smirk lighting up the shadows of his face as he presses a little more insistently, and the orgasm tears through her body so violently that her accidental scream is silent to human ears - all except one, who, when she opens her eyes with the desperate shudder of an after-shock, is gone.

The tears spring up without warning, the pleasant fuzziness of her comedown torn away by the beast of her despair.

It will take another hour for her to spot it, folded neatly and tucked between the pages of her sketchbook; a simple and hurried note in his messiest handwriting with a promise and a badly drawn heart.

_Next time, I’ll show you how good my fingers really are._


	2. Sex in the air (I don’t care)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Jess, my favourite angel <3
> 
> I wasn’t going to post today but I thought you might need this, so here I am, posting on time like some kind of capable human being.

Two months pass in a slow, inane pattern of finishing college applications, overnight study sessions at Ned’s house, and continuing to ignore any news outlet that dares to flash a headline or a bulletin in her vicinity. May keeps her up-to-date on the important things happening globally during their thrice-weekly coffee dates, but there’s only one piece of news that truly care for, and they know that will come from the source himself - whenever he bothers to resurface again.

Michelle doesn’t tell May or Ned about his midnight appearance. She doesn’t know how to, really, not without sounding insane or embarrassing herself with the fierce shade of red that boils beneath her skin every time she thinks about the feel of Peter’s hungry gaze as she worked herself to climax for him. His voice still rings in her ear, asking her to do any number of things at the most inopportune moments. The thought of how wrecked he had sounded makes her cross her legs every time - which is now a concerning habit, because she thinks about it almost every second she’s awake and dreams about it every night without fail.

Peter’s note is tucked into the safety of her bra each morning, his promise held close to her heart. At night it crumples beneath her pillow, but she feels better knowing she has something to hope for - the light at the end of a very long and very dark tunnel.

Unfortunately, despite herself, that hope begins to dwindle with every passing day. She believes in a future where Peter gets to return to them, but… What if he doesn’t? And even if he does, what does he even actually have left to come back to? Beck ruined everything - stole any semblance of a normal life that Peter might have been able to have. 

Every time she thinks about it, her fury reaches new heights. Peter should be here, throwing crumpled post-it notes at Ned’s head as they write their personal essays, or playing footsie with her beneath the Parker dining table, or walking her home after school and kissing her sweetly on the stoop.

Still, as time passes, she comes to accept that that night was an outlier. The next time she’ll see him will be the day his innocence is proved and not a second before.

It is that exact night that he proves her wrong once again.

She’s just exited the shower and pads barefoot into her bedroom, the overly large towel from her brother last year wrapped loosely around her. Some jingle that she’d heard on the radio that afternoon while studying with Ned still spins through her mind, and she hums the tune to herself contently. She’d finished the last of her college applications today and it’s left her in a pleasant mood. That, and the little cartoon elephant clip Betty had sent her a few minutes ago, Michelle’s outburst of laughter still warm in her stomach.

She opens her bedroom door and there it is; the  _ feeling _ .

She looks up from her reply to Betty and there he is, Peter Parker, pressed against her bedroom wall with a nervous smile that’s just for her.

The phone falls, forgotten.

“MJ, I can explain -”

She’s across the room in four strides, hands reaching for him -

Her fist hits his shoulder,  _ hard _ , and Peter flinches back in shock, rubbing the spot like she managed to inflict any level of pain.

“What the hell, MJ?!”

“It’s been two months! Where have you been?!”

Peter pouts, his too-long hair falling into his eyes. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m somewhat of an outlaw right now…”

She just squints her eyes. “Has Happy been making you watch westerns by any chance?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.” He finishes rolling his eyes to see her staring, emotion welling in her chest as his very real, definitely-not-a-dream presence right there, not even two feet away.

“You’re staring,” he says.

“Yeah, I am.” She sniffs and her bubble of laughter is wet. “Hi.”

Peter returns her gooey smile, almost vibrating out of his skin. “Hi, MJ.”

This time when she reaches for him, her hands grasp his face and pull him straight to her face, mouths pressed so tight together that it’ll probably leave bruises. She doesn’t care and Peter doesn’t seem concerned either, his arms looping around her waist to pull her closer as they kiss desperately. 

Gone are the cute awkward kisses of their beginning. Those disappeared one orgasm and an identity reveal ago.

Peter’s fingers graze her chin and angle her gently to the left, so when his mouth opens he has better access to acquaint himself with hers. Her grip falls from his face to his shoulders. His hands smooth up the bare skin of her back and she remembers with a start that she’s covered in nothing but a towel, Peter’s body the only thing keeping it in place.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he gasps when he finally breaks away, head tilting back as Michelle continues her kisses along his jaw, down his neck, her teeth grazing his collarbone as she licks a path back up to his pulse point. “I’ve been waiting for this -”

“Ever since you bailed on me mid-orgasm?” 

She doesn’t remove herself from his skin, instead peppering her forgiveness in the journey she makes back to his lips. Peter’s groan as her tongue slides alongside his reverberates through her chest. His touch strays beneath where the towel is beginning to pool around her waist, his fingers flexing as he presses her lower half insistently to his. He’s half-hard already and the thought of their reunion causing it makes her knees tremble. She pays it no mind, knowing Peter will keep her where she needs to be. Instead, she focuses on the filthy turn their kiss has taken, no longer just desperate; the waves of their desire crash into each other in an explosion of unstoppable force, sending Peter reeling as she holds onto him for dear life.

It’s probably her thigh slipping into the space between his that does it. That, or her hand disappearing beneath the hem of his black sweater to scratch impatiently down the firm muscles of his stomach. It might also be unpractised jerk of her hips against his.

“We don’t have to do this,” Peter says as he catches her wandering hands, trying to gain her attention. “I didn’t come here for this.”

“I know,” she says confidently, “But I want to. I… I want to be close to you.”

“We don’t have to be naked to be close to each other.” Peter glances pointedly down to where the towel no longer covers her breasts. Michelle just sighs.

“I appreciate that you’re giving me an out, but I don’t need one.” She tilts her head in thought. “Unless… Do you?”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been thinking about this way longer than just that night.” Peter toys with the exposed corner of the towel. “Can I, uh…”

Michelle reluctantly takes a half-step back - just enough for the material to drop heavily to the floor.

Peter almost falls to his knees - and he might, if not for how she’s back in his arms already, hiding her sudden shyness by joining their lips once more in a lingering kiss.

She can feel the tremble in his fingers as his hands slide down her damp skin, his brain short circuiting when she takes his hand and places it on her ass. Only when she’s sure he’ll keep it there does she return to her task of mapping his chest with her fingers, inching the sweater further up his body only to pause when he squeezes at her flesh, a finger grazing her inner thigh. It makes her exhale lodge in her throat, and he must hear the reaction because he does it again with more purpose, slipping it down onto to grasp her thigh tightly and hook it around his hips.

And  _ this _ , right there, is surely what heaven is supposed to feel like.

Peter realises what the change in angle has done a half-second after her, spurred on by the experimental roll of her hips that drags her center against the front of his sweatpants.

“Michelle,” he growls next to her ear, like he doesn’t know that saying her name will make her lose any semblance of rationality. She moves against him again, whimpering at the delicious friction that grates against her skin. Knowing that it’s Peter that’s bringing these sensations about does something animalistic to her brain, and she clings to him so tightly that Peter huffs a hot breath against her throat and then her back is hitting the wall with a slam, both legs wrapped around him now as he takes control of their quickening pace.

Her fingers card through his hair and she tugs just enough to remove his focus from her chest. Their kiss is messy, too focused on the feeling of grinding against each other. She could cry at the blissful feelings that curls inside of her bones, warm and soft and lulling her into a haze where the only thing that exists is Peter and Michelle. If not for the mounting pressure between legs, she thinks she could do this forever - just being with him after so long, finding pleasure in the rhythm they’re discovering together.

“We should - Fuck, you feel so good… We should stop. I won’t last much longer like this.”

Michelle whimpers. “Don’t you dare stop. I’m so close, just -”

Peter’s next thrust is a touch too forceful and she nearly tumbles from his grip, but it feels  _ amazing  _ and she tries to remember how she elicited such a response. Was it what she said? Is Peter really into talking? Or maybe -

She gives an experimental pull of his hair and there it is again - Peter reacts viscerally each and every time, hips snapping forward off-rhythm, eyes tightly closed, a litany of senseless praises directed her way. 

“You like that?” she asks seductively, her thighs beginning to cramp as she holds him tight against her. She barely notices, her brain otherwise occupied by the reboot it’s preparing for.

“Don’t be gentle,” he mumbles into her neck, so quiet she almost misses it over the hammering of their hearts.

Michelle’s about to ask when her sweaty skin causes her to slip a little down the wall, the only reason she isn’t straight down onto the floor being Peter’s overly powerful strength. The change in angle does little to alter the way he’s making her feel, and when her nails scrape against his scalp, the noise he makes has her head falling back against the wall with a thud.

She can’t blame him, really, for being so turned on by the feel of something real. After everything he’s been through in the last few months, she’d find the sensation of any touch exhilarating. 

“Michelle, I - Fuck, I can’t hold back much longer -”

Peter’s hot breath against her neck is what does her in - that or his hand travelling to her breast and giving an experimental tweak of her nipple, or is it the way he sings her name in such beautiful desperation? It washes over her in a flood of heat and weightlessness, her elongated moan echoing through his skin and into his bones. Peter groans at the feel of her erratic thrusts and comes with a wild look in his eyes, hands tight enough on her thighs to cause marks that she’ll use later as a guide to draw his hands on her.

They cling to each other far longer than they should. Peter’s lazily kissing the expanse of her neck and she’s running her hands through his hair and across his exposed forearms. For the first time, she feels close to sated. Peter’s touch did that; she knows it. Knowing he was safe and here and touching her is all she’s wanted these past few months, and for the first time her dreams came true.

“I can’t believe we just dry-humped like a couple of horny teenagers.”

“We  _ are  _ a couple of horny teenagers.”

She laughs, light and airy and so delectable that Peter is pressing his smile into hers. It feels like she could do this forever. She’s already missed months of this; how long will they wait to do this again? She craves stupid dates in the park and dragging him around her favourite art shows while he tours her around the museum he spent every weekend at as a kid. She wants to get told off for PDA in the hallway and using her remarkable amount of know-how on that school to sneak him into empty classrooms and take her time learning every piece of him.

They will never get that chance, so she tries to figure out how long it’ll take for him to be ready for another round - one that lasts a little longer than their initial desperation had dictated.

Peter’s hand returns to her chest, a sly tilt to his head as he watches himself explore. “I know we have a lot to talk about, but…” Michelle sighs as he laves a tortuous path to her ear. “You want to talk, or do you want me to finally use my fingers on you?”

Rational Michelle would know the correct answer is to talk.

But rational Michelle isn’t the one in the room right now. 

Rational Michelle isn’t even on this planet.

“Fingers. Definitely the fingers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @mjonesing on Tumblr as always


	3. When I get that feeling, I want sexual healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I wasn't going to another blowjob ever again but here we are.

“You’ve seen him, haven’t you?”

Ned says it so quietly it’s barely a whisper, but the library is silent and she’s always paying attention. Michelle still starts at the question - accusation? It felt like an accusation - but manages to play it off as a simple turning of her page. 

“Seen who?”

She glances up to see Ned giving her a look that says he sees right through her. “You’re smiling.”

“That’s not unusual.”

“You’re reading  _ The Bell Jar _ .”

“I find Sylvia Plath’s experiences very interesting -“

“You read it last year and I found you crying in the coffee shop.”

“I’m older now; I’ve matured.” Ned clearly does not believe her, so she slumps back in her chair and pretends he isn’t there. 

“A funny thing happened to me the other day,” Ned continues, rocking onto the back legs of his chair as he muses aloud. “I lost my favourite pen - you know the one, the inscribed one from my Grandpa? It probably fell out of my bag again, or it’s in my locker somewhere, but… no matter how hard I looked, I just couldn’t seem to find it.”

“Why are you telling me this boring-ass story?”

“Because two days ago I found a pen on my desk at home, with my name engraved into the side, in my favourite colour.” Ned’s dramatic pauses are getting old, but she’s tense as he leans across the table toward her with narrowed eyes. “It was a brand new pen. Just sitting there, among all my other boring, generic pens. Funny, isn’t it?”

Michelle swallows the lump in her throat. “Hilarious.”

The bell rings to signify the end of lunch, and Michelle makes haste in her mission to pack up and leave before he can dare to continue this any further. 

Still, as she’s leaving, Ned calls out, “Is he okay?”

Michelle sighs. “I don’t know.”

* * *

He’d left after an hour, babbling about trackers and danger and  _ I should never have come here. _ Any question she’d tried to pose to fish for information had been brushed aside, usually with his hands or his mouth - and she’d let him, if only because the dark flash of  _ something _ in his eyes every time she tried made her heart break a little more.

So it’s a surprise when just a week later he’s in her room again, the look of concentration on his face illuminated in the afternoon sunlight.

He’s so busy doing whatever has occupied his mind, hunched over her bookshelf with his hands out of sight, that he only notices her presence when she slams the door closed behind her and jumps across the room to draw the curtains.

“Are you out of your mind? Someone could have seen you!”

Peter looks way more concerned with other things - like the thick shot of webbing he’s fired at her wrist, trapping her to the windowsill. 

“MJ,” he exhales, then in a panic, “Shit, I’m sorry - I thought you’d be at post-practise dinner with Ned.”

“He wasn’t feeling well.” She looks down to her stuck hand with a put-out sigh, then to the device the webbing had come from that’s hidden beneath the sleeves of his sweatshirt. “You know, for someone trying to fly under the radar, carrying those around is the opposite of subtle.”

Peter frowns. “It’s for protection.”

“They’re one-of-a-kind, Peter - people find an errand strand somewhere and that’s all the proof they need to know you’re in the area.”

His frown deepens but then makes way for a softer look, like maybe he can hear the spike of the concern that’s jittering in her gut. He steps a little closer. “I know how to cover my tracks. I’m careful, I promise.”

“What are you even doing here? Why are you still in the city?” The moment the questions leave her mouth, she knows it’s a mistake. Peter’s expression dropping is only confirmation of that. “Peter, please. You have to give me something.”

He moves towards her again and she’s preparing herself to resist - Peter’s mouth will  _ not  _ be the reason she fails to learn anything new again - but he diverts at the last second, his touch gentle on her forearm as he works. Within seconds she’s free, and her first decision is to wrap her arms around his neck and hug him with all the love she hopes he knows he deserves.

Ned would be proud, honestly. She learnt everything she knows about hugging from him and May.

Peter melts into her hold for a moment, then reaches for her hand and smooths his thumb over the remaining tackiness of her skin. Her breath hitches at the electric feel of it. 

“There,” he says, “All better.”

“You really do cover your tracks, huh?” She pries the small solution from his grip and holds it up to examine, the sunlight refracting through the pale blue liquid inside. “What is this even made of?”

“MJ,” Peter sighs, nuzzling against her cheek with his nose. “I don’t want to talk about chemical compounds right now.”

“You don’t want to talk at all.” Peter smirks against her neck. “Is that all I am, now? A quick way to relieve some stress?”

Peter pulls back just enough for her to see he’s no longer being playful. “Is that what you think? Surely you know that’s not how I think of you.”

“Relax, Parker.” She kisses the tip of his nose. “I’m messing with you.”

He still seems unsure, so she cups his cheek and pulls him into a kiss. He settles under her touch and links his fingers with hers. With the warmth of the sun on her back, it feels like what they were supposed to have; all the time in the world to learn about each other, acting out all the ridiculous things from teen movies that seemed silly until she fell for Peter.

Still. He needs to be reminded who she is.

“Hey!” Peter tugs at the webbing she’s just fired at their joined hands, trapping them both this time to the windowsill. “What are you doing?!”

Michelle narrows her gaze. “You’re avoiding my questions.”

“I’m not avoiding anything. If I were avoiding things, would I be here?”

“You’re not here to see me! You didn’t think I’d be home!”

“That’s -” Peter’s jaw snaps shut, a flush colouring his cheeks a soft pink. “That’s true, yes.”

“It’s been nearly six months. May and Ned and I, we’re in the dark here. You have to tell us something, at least so we know you’re okay.”

“MJ, you know I can’t -”

Michelle throws the vial, not looking for where it lands in favour of watching Peter’s surprise morph into frustration.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because now you  _ have  _ to talk to me.”

“MJ, we’re going to be stuck here for two hours.”

“Should have thought about that before being an asshole.”

He grits his teeth, nostrils flaring. “I’m trying to _protect_ you.”

“Protect me from what?” Something cold and sharp flaring in her gut. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“It doesn’t matter, not right now. Can’t I just enjoy the little time we have together?” Peter steps further into her space, lips grazing her cheek. “I’ve missed you so much, Em. Your smile, your eyes, your cutting remarks… Fuck, you’re so beautiful to me.”

“Stop trying to distract me,” she snaps, but the conviction disappears with every word as his free hand trails around the swell of her hips. It’s a dirty trick that she’d be able to resist on nearly every other occasion - except Peter’s been gone for so long that their two nights of something  _ great  _ have solidified in her mind, like a Pavlovian response, that the sight of him should turn her on unbearably in just a few seconds.

“Now, why would you ever think I’d try to make you do anything?” Peter’s free hand trails down her arm, making her shiver.

“We already established that you’re an asshole.”

“But I’m  _ your  _ asshole.” Peter pauses then chuckles into her ear. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Her voice fails her and Michelle tries to remember why she was angry moments ago, but all she can focus on is his trapped fingers flexing around her hand and his breath on her chin as he finds her mouth, pressing a chaste kiss there. She chases him as he withdraws, pulling him back to kiss a little more insistently, her fingers buried in his hair.

Peter refuses to let the webbing incident hinder him; his hand is everywhere all at once, tight on her hip and curling around her neck and groping her ass. Michelle isn’t much better, already exploring the expanse of his torso beneath his shirt. While she catches her breath, Peter makes a new home in the dip of her collarbone and she subsequently fails to find any oxygen that rejuvenates her more than his touch. 

It’s only when her hand makes contact with the cold metal of his belt loop that Peter emerges, lips bruised and hair rumpled in a way that sets her on fire.

“MJ, what are you doing?”

“Sending a fax.” She huffs. “What the fuck do you think I’m doing?”

Peter chews on his lip for a moment before he nods, and Michelle’s got his belt and trousers undone before he can even find a way to get out a strangled, “Holy fuck, Michelle.”

“This isn’t how I expected this afternoon to go,” Peter confesses as he helps her tug the fabric from his hips and down his thighs. She’s barely paying attention, too focused on the dark cotton that keeps him hidden from her. She’s always been a curious sort of person, but if you’d asked her a year ago if she thought that curiosity would lead her  _ here _ \- deftly tucking her fingers into Peter’s waistband so she can have a staring match with his cock - then she’d probably only have believed the bit about Peter basically webbing himself stuck.

The angle tugs weirdly on her restraint but she’s determined, exhaling a warm breath on her slightly chilled and trembling fingers. Peter whimpers from above her and Michelle smiles. This is the first time in six months she’s felt like she has even a modicum of control over her life. Knowing that control is over Peter’s long overdue pleasure is what makes her blink and wrap a hand around his shaft.

“Fuck, fuck… Michelle, I, I don’t -” Peter inhales sharply through his nose. “How is this my life?”

The yelp that follows comes from Michelle darting out her tongue and licking. She waits, considering what she wants to do, and then she’s taken half of him into her mouth in a move so fast she’s almost given herself whiplash. Peter’s approval continues to spur her on, taking her time to find what makes him tick. It’s more fun than she expected it to be, combining her love of learning with her adoration of the boy above her, topped off with the electric feel of his hand perched cautiously on the crown of her head. Her hum of approval makes him swear loudly into the sweltering heat of her room, the hard muscles of his thigh quivering against her palm.

“Michelle I can’t - You feel so good.” Peter’s gripping her hair now, a memory of her doing the very same thing to him as he moved against her glowing bright in her mind, making her throb with need. She hollows her cheeks around his head and his hips snap forward. She does it again, testing a theory. The results are  _ very  _ satisfactory.

It’s nice, she thinks, to see she’s not the only one in this relationship who’s a mess for the other.

Michelle pulls back to catch her breath, smirking at the dazed look on Peter’s face. “How you doing there, babe?”

Peter groans. “That is the best and worst thing you’ve ever said.”

“I want you to fuck my mouth,” she retorts with an arched eyebrow. Peter looks about ready to die on the spot.

“Okay fine. You win.” Peter’s thumb swipes across the drool collecting on the corner of her mouth. “You do not play fair.”

There’s something in his expression she doesn’t want to see, so she edges closer on her knees and takes him into her mouth once more, settling when she’s comfortable with the depth. Peter gingerly withdraws his hips and then inches them forward. She rolls her eyes and grabs a handful of his ass, applying pressure until he lets her move him further. He hits the back of her throat and she fights the urge to gag, but he’s already pulling back and the next time he moves, he stops just before. His thrusts gain in confidence, holding her hair once more as he settles into her previous rhythm. 

It’s nice, but not exactly what she wanted. It takes pushing the flat of her tongue against his shaft as he pulls back to make him forget to hold back. From then, it’s letting her jaw go slack and enjoying the way he moans her name over and over and over.

“Michelle, I’m gonna - I’m so close.” Peter’s tugging insistently at her hair now, and it’s only when she finally looks up that she realises why - there’s two hands tangled in her curls now, her own abandoned in a mess of webs as he holds her gaze and comes, arching over her with the power of it when she swallows on instinct.

“You motherfucker,” she says when he pulls out, voice cracking as she massages the hinge of her jaw. “I hope you know that’s the last blowjob I’m ever giving you as punishment.”

Peter groans, falling to his knees and pressing his sweaty forehead against her shoulder. “That was so fucking amazing I probably won’t care.”

“We’re circling back to this betrayal.” She presses a kiss to his throat when he nuzzles against her. “But first you gotta go get the anti-web shit and free me so you can return the favour.”

She feels how his eyes bulge before his head pops into her sight with a hopeful smile. “Really?”

“If you’re not going to talk to me, the least you can do is put that mouth to  _ some  _ use.”


	4. I don't want you sad and blue, and I just wanna make love to you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I have changed the summary. Yes I also want to change the title but I won’t, because I’m too lazy. 
> 
> Can you believe we’re on prompt 4 already?! Where is this month going. I hope it continues to speed past but I’m just wondering.

She never does find out what Peter was doing in her bedroom that day.

The evidence that follows it, however… Michelle isn’t a lawyer, but it’d probably be an open and shut case.

He was saying goodbye.

Peter disappears seemingly from all of existence for months, missing prom and graduation and an entire summer of MJ and Ned preparing for college life.

May calls her on her first day of classes, her voice wet with tears as she laments on how proud she is of Michelle. There’s a sadness neither of them can bear to identify - that May should be proud of someone else, someone far more important - and Michelle ends the call quicker than she should, the ache in her chest too pronounced.

She leaves her window open every night, still, even after so long with no sign of him.

He doesn’t use it.

Ned talks to her every day. He becomes one of the most important people in her life - the little brother she never wanted but adores with everything she has - and they spend most evenings studying in silence, enjoying each other’s company and letting the usual things go unsaid. He told her, the night of graduation after a shared bottle of stolen champagne, that she wasn’t a replacement. Michelle was an addition. No one can fill the gaping hole in the shared space of their heartbreak, but together, it’s a little easier to cope.

It’s weird to think of, sometimes. Ned is her best friend, but she is not his, not really. It’s not sad; it’s just a fact. She’s okay with it.

Time continues around them. Michelle learns and grows and adapts.

Everything is almost okay.

And then she wakes up to the news headline that changes everything:

_ Spiderman linked to six arrests in New York City. _

Michelle runs straight to the bathroom and throws up the remains of the previous night’s dinner.

Peter Parker was in the city? Peter Parker, her boyfriend of over a year, who she went on half a date with and shared four orgasms with, had been just a stone’s throw from his whole family and done nothing? How long had he been in the city - and where is he now? 

Her eyes focus on the still cracked window of her bedroom, the thin line of salt unbroken as it always remains.

He hadn’t come to her. He’d been  _ right here _ and… Michelle hits ignore on Ned’s call and climbs right back into bed.

She drifts in a restless sleep for most of the day, ignoring her mother’s pleas to get dressed and out into the world. It’s easier to hide beneath her duvet and dream of a better world, hugging a pillow close to her chest.

She stirs at midnight, bladder full and stomach growling. Reluctantly, she pulls herself from her cocoon to correct both of these necessities. The kitchen tiles are cold beneath her feet and she rushes to grab whatever snacks will fill her up with minimal effort. As she heads back to her room, she resolves that crumbs in the sheets are a small but necessary price to pay.

Except her eyes are drawn to the window for reasons she doesn’t understand - not until she spots it, small but significant; a smudge in the line, barely a break but a disturbance all the same.

The tortilla chips crunch with their impact on the carpet. Michelle’s too busy looking wildly around her room, terrified that the moment she’s waited so very long for was spent instead considering how important dip was to the process of eating your feelings.

“Peter?” she whispers into the darkness. The air is still but there’s something charged about it, and Michelle steps over the snacks in favour of searching the room a little better. “Peter, please be here.”

Something shifts in the furthest corner of the room, and Peter Parker steps out of the shadows with a grim smile and an impressive black eye.

“Hey, MJ.”

A sob lodges in her throat. “You’re really here?”

“I’m here, I swear.” Peter’s twisting his fingers together and looking anywhere but the expression on her face, too stunned by his sudden appearance to hide the swarm of emotions battling inside of her mind for dominance. “You uh, you didn’t answer the phone.”

She glances to where her phone has sat since she turned it off this morning. “I’ve been busy.” And then, when he doesn’t say anything, she adds, “You called?”

Peter’s shoulder raises in a half-hearted shrug. “Ned did, but I was in the room with him.”

“Oh.” Michelle sniffs uselessly, a tear falling down her cheek anyway that she swipes away quickly. 

“I was worried about you.”

_ I’ve been worried about you for far too long _ , she wants to scream,  _ the least you deserve is a few hours worried about me. _

“I’m fine, Peter. Are you?”

He clicks his tongue and sighs. “You’re mad.”

“Damn right I’m mad.” Her voice wavers as anger and joy wage war within it. “You’ve been gone for eight months!”

Peter cringes, taking a half step back. “That’s fair. I am very, very sorry about that.”

“Sorry isn’t good enough, Peter.”

“I know, I know.” He runs a hand over his face, flinching when it bumps the bruising on the left side of his face. “I’m an ass. I didn’t mean to be gone for so long, I swear, I just…”

She scoffs. “Don’t bullshit me. You could have at least told us you’re okay somehow.”

“No, I couldn’t. I was -”

“Protecting us? That may have worked last time, but I’ve had a lot of time to realise that’s a load of bullshit.”

Peter’s chin trembles. “MJ, please. Can’t you just trust me?”

“Honestly? No.”

There’s a thousand foot drop in the space between them, all the unsaid things between them overflowing from the cavern. She’s so confused by his appearance, the bruise and the headline, how he spent all day with Ned like they’d travelled back in time to a year before, when Peter was just Peter and Michelle was just Michelle and they were preparing for a fun trip around Europe. She’s angry that this all happened in the first place, and sad that what they’ve become is this.

But most of all - despite it all - she still  _ misses  _ him. Even when he’s right in front of her.

“You can’t just leave like that.” All the tension drains from her body and she exhales heavily at the relief. “You can’t just leave  _ me  _ like that.”

She doesn’t know who moves first, only that the next second they’re clinging to each other for dear life. Michelle holds him in the way she’s dreamed of, and Peter’s arms nearly fracture her ribs, but it’s perfect and right and everything she could have ever wanted. Peter’s tears are hot against her neck and Michelle’s stain the jacket that swamps his body. The ache in her chest disappears and instead she’s full of a quiet contentment, cupping his jaw as she kisses every inch of skin she can reach, travelling up his throat and across his face until she burrows herself into the other side.

Peter’s quiet strength lifts her gently until she holds him with her legs too. He’s solid and real against her, his chest moving with his breaths, the steady beat of his heart thrumming through her skin. He presses his nose to her pulse point and inhales, humming softly when his fingers tangle in her messy hair to press a kiss to her warm cheeks.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he mumbles against her skin. His lips trail along until he finds the corner of her mouth, and then she’s sealing the moment with the hot lick of his tongue along her bottom lip as she opens herself up for him.

The way he kisses her is like the act was created just for them - a love language they use when all the other words fall short. It heats up every corner of her soul until her fingers and toes tingle with the sensation. Perhaps they were made for this; two beings who were always meant to kiss despite whatever else the universe tried to throw their way.

Her anger dissipates into the familiar flare of arousal that burns through her veins. Eight months of nothing and she’s so desperate, she’s willing to look past everything else that tells them no.

His hand slides down her spine, creasing in her oversized sleep shirt, making its way beneath the fabric to feel the soft skin at the small of her neck. She whimpers when an experimental roll of her hips puts her in contact with the growing hardness in his pants.

“MJ,” he begins, but before he can finish his thought she’s tugging at his shirt to reveal the chest she’s been so eager to explore. She tightens the grip around his waist and he lets go to let her remove it, but before she can appreciate the view he’s pulling at hers until they match. 

The feel of their naked torsos pressed together does something to her brain. She may never get fully dressed again.

If it’s this good with just their top halves free, she can only imagine how perfect it’ll be when he finally slips into her and calls her home.

She’s almost down to the waistband of his jeans when he stops her, softly prying her fingers away from him and kissing the tip of each one.

“What are you doing?” she asks breathlessly.

“Tonight’s all about you,” is all he says, and before she can ask anything else he’s laying her lovingly on top of her bedsheets. His hands trail across her ribs, a path of butterfly kisses leading down from her mouth to her sternum, across to her right breast. She gasps when his mouth wraps around her nipple and feels his smile.

“Don’t laugh at me,” she scolds with a weak hit to his upper arm, but then his tongue swirls and it changes into a tight grip while her back arches.

“I would  _ never _ .”

“Eight months and you’re still an asshole.”

He hums and caresses her thigh. “Still yours.”

Her heart hammers in her chest, her mind screaming too many things she wants to say, but his hands knead their way up her legs until they curl into the waistband of her shorts, slipping the striped cotton down until he can nuzzle his nose to her pubic bone with a content sigh.

“I’ve missed you, too,” he whispers.

Michelle blushes furiously and kicks out a foot until it makes contact with his gut. “I swear if you just talked to my vagina like it’s a separate entity I will  _ murder  _ you.”

Peter tuts, sitting up to remove the shorts from around her knees with an amused uptick to his cheeks. “So violent tonight, babe.”

She sits up to poke the yellowing bruise. “Seems like something you’d be used to.”

“MJ.” There’s an underlying note of warning to his voice but she isn’t in the mood for his flimsy excuses, so she lies back and spreads her legs so he can settle in the space between. Peter’s mouth on her inner thighs feels like a silent apology, one she can’t bring herself to reject.

When he finally moves up to take an experimental lick, she closes her eyes against anything that threatens to steal her focus; instead she concentrates on the slip of his middle finger through her wetness, the teasing trace of her entrance, the soft kiss to her labia as she shifts to slip the digit where she wants it. Peter withdraws just long enough for her to huff out a frustrated breath, and then he eases two fingers inside of her just enough to make her hips buck for more.

They seem to be living out an explicit version of the fable from their childhood; Michelle wants speed and passion while Peter’s content to take his time, favouring the precision of a slow pace to rediscover the girl he left behind.

Peter’s shallow thrusts and complete avoidance of her clit is driving her slowly, deliciously insane. She’s barely able to control herself against jumping him and stealing her pleasure herself.

“I just finished midterms,” she blurts out when Peter moves into a more comfortable position, withdrawing his fingers for just a moment. “I think they went well.”

“You’re the smartest person I know. You did amazing.”

When he enters her again, it’s a little deeper and there’s a curl to his fingertips as he strokes against her inner walls. She continues, “Ned helped me study. I’m sure he told you that. He was a great study partner -  _ oh _ , a little to the left - and he’s doing really well at college. Top marks in his first essay.”

“That’s great.”

“ _ Shit _ , right there, do that again - Did he tell you we went to prom together? I’ve still got the corsage he bought me. Matched my dress perfectly.”

Peter groans into her skin as she rocks her hips in time with his deep thrusts. “You look so good in blue.”

Michelle stops cold, a bucket of ice keeps her perfectly still. “What did you say?”

Peter clears his throat. “Nothing.”

“How did you know I wore blue?”

“Uh, Ned showed me a picture.” But despite it being entirely possible, Michelle knows it is a lie. The picture of Ned and Michelle pulling ridiculous faces that night sits pride of place in both of their rooms, and she glances to it now as she thinks back, remembering how they had both shared something unspoken to the feeling of not being entirely alone as they walked home arm-in-arm through the streets of Queens.

“Peter…” His fingers curl and his thumb brushes against her clit and she gasps, “Peter!”

“I try to stay away,” he confesses into the smooth expanse of her stomach. “I want to keep you safe, but I… I can’t resist it sometimes. You call me in like a - like a siren, and I need to feel you against me, to hear you say my name, to look into your eyes and…”

She opens her eyes despite being on the brink of collapse, and he’s there, inches away from her face, something too complex to quantify swimming in his gaze. She’s trapped in it, despite everything, wanting him to know she  _ is  _ here for him, waiting, hoping, ready to hold him and kiss away all of his pain.

“You deserve everything, MJ, but at the very least, you deserve better than this.”

“I don’t care,” she almost sobs, panting against the waves of intensity in her body and in her chest. “I just want you.”

The orgasm slams into her a wrecking ball, but not before she sees the lack of resolution that torments him flicker across the open planes of his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHHHH I AM SORRY
> 
> @mjonesing on Tumblr as always


	5. If I could plan the perfect day, love, then I would start it just like this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very short chapter BUT the next one is at least double the length so... here you go.

The first thing she feels the next morning is the ache of her thighs and hips.

The next is the brand new feel of an arm wrapped around her waist.

Her eyes spring open, and she looks down to see a palm, warm and steady, holding her close to a bare chest that curves around her back protectively.

Tears spring behind her still tired eyes. Peter had stayed with her. Peter’s here, hours later, still by her side. 

Is this how it should feel? In other universes where he hadn’t been torn away from her, does she feel this way every morning? Getting to share a space with him, being domestic and peaceful instead of rushed, passionate moments stuffed between long stretches of loneliness and regret. Maybe this is how it’s meant to be.

The pounding of her heart must wake him because he stirs, tightening his hold as he stretches out his legs and snuggles back into her.

Cautiously, she covers his hand with her own, her fingers falling into the space between his. 

“MJ?” His breathy words waft over the damp skin on the back of her neck. “Is this… Am I dreaming?”

She clears her dry throat. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Peter shifts behind her and she feels where he’s already achingly hard against her ass. Her eyes slip closed again as she pushes back against him.

“If it is a dream, it’s the best one I’ve ever had.” Peter kisses where her neck meets her shoulder. “Waking up with you… It’s what I’ve wanted since that plane ride home from London.”

She sighs, tightening her grip on her pillow’s edge as she grinds back with a little more purpose. Peter’s teeth graze across her skin. The temperature of the room has increased tenfold, the early morning draw of sleep long forgotten from the heady way Peter makes her feel. The hand around her waist presses deeper into her stomach and they move languidly together, Peter’s hard length slipping between her legs in the most tempting way. 

What she wouldn’t give to feel him inside of her. Just the thought of it makes her moan his name and pick up their pace. 

“Michelle, you feel so good.” She slides his hand down until he’s slipping underneath the waistband of her underwear, where his fingers eagerly move amongst her arousal. Peter finds her clit immediately, pressing two fingertips on either side and moving in slow circles to the rhythm of their grinding.

She’s delirious now, thoughts whirring around her head at a thousand miles a second, too fast to comprehend outside of wanting  _ more, more, more _ .

Clambering back her arm to reach for anything that will stabilize her, she finds his ass and squeezes, shifting to tug down his boxers and grasp him clumsily in hand. Peter swears quietly against her neck and sucks hard; there’ll be a mark there later, but the thought of having some tangible proof of their time together thrills her almost as much as his desperate attention to her breast, rolling her nipple in time with his rigorous attention to her clit.

It doesn’t take long for either of them to find their end, Michelle artlessly pumping him to get him there so they fall over the edge together. Every cell in her body lights up with the power of it while she shudders in his arms.

They don’t bask in it for long, both sticky with sweat and their partner’s release, but it’s enough for Peter to find his breath and confess, “I wish we could do this every morning.”

The words are tender, sweet even, but they might as well be a knife in her gut.

“But we can’t, can we?” She can feel his excuse coming already, and she doesn’t have it in her to hear it. “You’re not staying.”

She climbs out of his reach before he can open his mouth, grabbing a sweater from the top of her laundry pile.

“It’s not over yet,” Peter says anyway, coming to join her despite his cringe at the shift of his ruined underwear. “I don’t want to leave, MJ.”

“It’s fine, Peter. I’m a big girl. I know what I got myself into when I chose to be with you.”

Can he hear the beginnings of doubt in her tone, the loneliness that is beginning to claw at her despite the group of loved ones she’s cultivated? Does he know how much it hurts to lie about his place in her life? That every time someone finds out enough to ask, she dies a little more inside as she says she never really knew him?

Worst of all, the part she shoves so deep inside that she’s never given it time to take roots; that just maybe, despite how much it is a lie, it also feels like the truth?

Peter leans in to kiss her, but she pulls back. “Morning breath,” she says quietly. “Come on, I’ll show you the bathroom.”

He tugs on his clothes and follows her there, accepting the spare toothbrush she offers. They stand at the sink together, side by side in the discoloured mirror attached to the wall, and yet another piece of her shrivels up at the sight of it; the domesticity of it all in the eye of the storm that is their relationship. 

He grins with a mouth full of foam and she barely manages a grimace.

Their time on this stolen night is over. Now, she must return to the Michelle who lies to the world and herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @mjonesing on Tumblr as always.


	6. I’ll let you touch it if you’d like to go down, I’ll let you go further if you take the southern route

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELCOME TO HELL. OCCUPATION: PETER, MICHELLE AND ME.

The summer arrives in an unbearable wave of humidity, everyone falling into that grumpy, lazy mood of hating the jump between one air-con and the next. Michelle elects to spend her time locked in her room with the curtains closed and lying on the floor, Ned lingering by the open door as he fans himself with her unopened sketchbook.

“I know I said nothing could beat how horrible yesterday was, but I’d like to rescind that statement and issue another with the date corrected to today.” Ned groans as another bead of sweat drips down the side of his face. “How are you staying so chill about this?”

“If I’m not relaxed, I’ll just be hotter.” Michelle allows a single finger to reach out and turn to the next page of her textbook, the thought of any more movement making her warmer than she could possibly want. “I told you we should have just studied at yours. At least your air-con works.”

“If I never see the inside of that room again, it’ll be too soon,” Ned sighs reluctantly. They’d both chosen to spend the summer working at the local ice cream store - only for the place to catch fire just a week into the job, leaving the pair broke and unable to find any more summer positions. The heatwave had consumed the city shortly after and they’d agreed to spend the time being somewhat productive - Michelle taking summer classes and Ned trying to talk her into playing video games.

She gives in far more than she wants to, if only to make him smile.

The downside to having nothing to get  _ out  _ for in a heatwave is that they’re too hot to bother inspiring themselves to get any further than Ned’s bedroom - until they’d spent two straight weeks locked inside of it and he’d insisted on a change of scenery. So they’re here, pretending that Ned’s idea wasn’t the stupidest thing to ever happen in modern history, melting into her decades old carpet and trying to pass the time in whatever minimal way they can.

“You just want to see Betty, and you’re pissed she’s four hundred miles away.”

Ned’s glare bounces off her burning skin, but the pen he throws at her hits her square between the eyes.

It skitters across the floor and comes to a stop against her bookshelf, and it is then that she sees the book sitting slightly out of line from its neighbours.

It’s not a particularly remarkable thing by itself, but it tugs at something in her brain anyway. Michelle has taken meticulous care of her books since she learnt how to use gentle hands in preschool, and the way this one sits is not in a way she would dare to leave it. 

The memory flashes across the back of her eyelids like a snapshot; last winter, when she’d found Peter already in her room, crouched down in this very corner without ever explaining why.

She scrambles to her hands and knees and crawls the short distance to the shelf, ignoring Ned’s concerned inquiry in favour of ripping the book from its perch and flicking through the pages in a desperate search for  _ something _ .

When nothing stands out, she tips it upside and shakes. The pages flutter in the humid air but her lap remains empty of its secrets. Her groan is one of desperation, and the way she throws the book at the shelf is that of a tantruming child.

“MJ? You okay?” Ned asks cautiously.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. I just… I thought…” Michelle runs a hand through her sweaty hair and wraps an arm around her knees. “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.”

Ned moves to sit beside her, legs crossed and a soothing palm between her shoulder blades. “Is this about Peter?”

She gives him a look because it hurts too much to say,  _ it’s always about Peter _ .

“He’ll be back, you know that, right? It’s taking longer than we expected but he'll come back to us soon.”

Michelle bits on her lip, staring up from her temple’s perch on the pinnacle of her knees, finally voicing what she’s kept inside for so long: “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know Peter. Whatever he’s doing right now, he’s doing so he can be back with us.”

It’s not fair, because she wishes she could have his unwavering level of faith. Ned has had almost his whole life to get to know Peter, sharing a million memories that would fade without the other to settle their inner demons. Instead, she’s Michelle; cynical and sarcastic and with an overwhelming need to  _ know  _ whatever stands in her path. She’s known Peter for nearly 5 years, two of which have been spent with him on the run - the entire length of their romantic relationship, though she tries not to think about things like that too often - and if she’s honest with herself, she has no idea what’s going through his head right now.

The mood for the rest of the afternoon is subdued, and Ned bails to return to the cool air of his own room. With the setting sun, it’s a little more bearable to move, and she makes herself busy tidying away the remains of their snacks. Michelle stuffs the last of the cheese puffs into her mouth and moves to the bookshelf, where the book still lies with crumpled pages and as the source of her sullen mood.

She’s about to put it back in its place when she spots it - tiny and almost non-existent, but there on the first page of the first chapter, is a pencilled in circle around the letter ‘o’.

Michelle’s chest soars. The only person who would dare desecrate her sacred novels would be the idiot she misses so dearly.

The book slams onto the crowded desk top and she reaches for her sketchbook and a pencil, cracking the spine as she turns to the first page and begins to write out the circled letters that are scattered through the book.

Ten minutes later, a teardrop stains the heavy paper.

Peter’s message in her handwriting stares back at her.

_ Don’t lose hope. We’ll be together soon. _

_ I love you. _

* * *

Her second year of college starts with less of a bang and more of a whimper.

There’s a clerical error that enrolls her in the wrong class, so she spends the first two weeks trying to sort out her schedule. After that, it’s catching up with the sheer amount of work that has doubled since last year. Ned spends less time studying with her in person - the time it takes to travel between their homes is precious time that should be spent with their books - so they make a habit of video calls and biweekly strolls around the local park, making up stories about the people who pass them.

Even as it gets colder, they make sure to go. Rain or shine. Their friendship is built on the fundamental truth that they need each other to get through it; ‘it’ being any number of things, but mostly, life in general.

It feels like a bad joke when she confides in Ned that a classmate asked her out, and two days later Peter appears from nowhere.

The question slips out before she can apply thought to what it means. “How did you know?”

Because of course Ned didn’t. Ned would never betray her trust. Besides no one being able to contact Peter, there is something between Ned and Michelle that Peter cannot possibly understand; the pair can talk to each other about everything and anything, knowing it is safe in the bond that unites them.

Peter can’t access that bond. He lost that right when he left.

“Tell me what?” Peter’s not even finished climbing through the window, frowning at her like it’s been hours and not a year since they last spoke.

She shakes her head and drops her textbook onto the bed, her excitement to see him powering her legs to lift her up and over to his side. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

Peter hesitates, reaching for her, but turns to draw the curtains first. When he knows they’re alone, he sweeps her up into his arms and tucks his face into her neck, breathing her in like she’s his first taste of oxygen. Despite everything, she melts into his hold. It’s as warm as her mom’s kitchen on thanksgiving, as welcoming as May’s smile when she unlocks the door and surprises her with baked goods from her favourite store, and as perfect as anything can possibly be now he’s here.

“I am so, so, so…” She punctates each word with a kiss to his cheek, nose, chin; anywhere she can reach. “So, so angry at you.”

“I’m so sorry, MJ, I swear… I never meant for it to be so long.” He catches her lips in a quick but passionate kiss. “Did you at least get my message?”

“Of course I did. Your aunt is an angel.” She grasps his face and his tongue slides hungrily into her mouth as they stumble backwards. She breaks away to catch her breath and he eagerly drops to her throat, biting and sucking in a way that almost seems possessive. “But that doesn’t… That doesn’t explain where you’ve been.”

“Wakanda. There were… Complications.” He grasps her thighs and wraps them around his hips, groans when the thin fabric of her leggings does nothing to subdue the heat between her legs against his crotch. “But I’m here now. I’m here.”

She untangles her hold from around his neck to tug her sleep shirt off, Peter’s eyes bulging when he sees the lack of anything else covering her breasts. He hikes her higher and his mouth goes immediately to her left, wet kisses between the graze of his teeth making her grind against him impatiently.

It’s been a year since anyone but her own hand got her off. It’s hardly her fault that she’s so worked up.

The same must be said of him as well, because he’s harder than she expects when the bulge of his arousal in those jeans rubs against her. Clearly, a year is far more than they can handle.

“How long do we have?” she asks when his hands land squarely on her ass to adjust the angle of their writhing. 

“Not long enough.”

She huffs out a breath, tugging his hair to pull him away from her right breast and back to her lips. “We never have long enough.”

“I know.” His voice is pained, a temporary clearing to the thick fog of desire that consumes them. “We just have to use our time wisely.”

“Does this mean you’re finally going to fuck me?”

Peter stumbles at her words, but Michelle is already leaning back to remove his t-shirt and it throws him further off balance, and the pair tumble to the floor. Peter’s quick enough to twist and take the brunt of the force, but the collision of her knees with the old carpet still has her groaning for all the wrong reasons.

“Shit, are you okay?” he gasps, looking up at her from her new perch straddling his ribs. She nods and takes a breath to reorientate herself, his hands stroking softly up the outsides of her calves. “Turns out, you can’t just say shit like that to me without some warning.”

She chuckles as the initial pain eases and gives way to the strange feeling she gets from seeing him between her thighs. “You know, while you’re down there…”

Peter’s eyebrows raise in delight. “Really?”

“Yeah. Sure.” She sounds far more confident than she is, and she clears her throat against the doubt slipping up her spine. “Why not? If you want to, I mean.”

“I’ve been thinking about tasting you again every day for the past eleven months.”

She gives him a tight-lipped smile. “Don’t forget the two weeks and three days.”

“This is why you’re smarter than me.” Peter’s hand goes to her waist and snaps the waistband of her leggings playfully. “What’s the chance you’re wearing underwear under these?”

“Mm,” she says in faux thought, tapping her chin. “Slim to none.”

Peter groans. “Fuck, Michelle…”

“That’s the idea, caveman.”

She clambers off of his chest and to her feet, artlessly removing the clothing from her lower half as Peter relocates to the bed - “It’ll be easier on your knees,” he says softly when she asks - and when she’s finished she’s struck by an iron wall of nerves, feet rooted to the carpet and refusing to cooperate.

“You okay?” Peter asks, leaning up on his elbows. There’s a little crease between his eyebrows that is unfairly adorable. “If you don’t want to…”

“No, no, I do. I just, um, I don’t really know what to  _ do _ .”

He’s in front of her in seconds, the soothing heat of his palms as they wrap around her hips settling the pounding of her heart. “Neither do I, but we can just do what we’ve done so far; learn together.”

He kisses her sternum then rests his forehead there. It’s a rare moment of peace between the couple, resting in their bond instead of trying to enforce it, her fingers trailing through his hair while she steps closer between his legs. The warmth his presence fills her with soothes the racing of her thoughts, all of her problems - college, work, Peter - fading to nothing. How can she worry about anything when something as good as this exists in the world?

“You’re so beautiful,” Peter mumbles, pressing soft kisses wherever his lips want to fall, fingers skimming along the fronts of her thighs. “I wish I’d been able to tell you more, but you are… You’re so amazing, MJ.”

She preens with his attention, bending down to kiss him sweetly. Peter chases her lips, leaning back to press more insistently, his hands trailing up her ribs now. 

“MJ,” he says seriously when she can bear to pull away. “I need to tell you something.”

She pauses in her move to climb into his lap. “What is it?”

He makes sure to hold her gaze, his thumb brushing across her bottom lip. “I love you.”

“Oh.” Michelle relaxes, fears falling aside, forgotten. “I love you, too.”

His grin is giddy, a severe case of heart eyes taking over his face. She lowers herself until she’s comfortably in his hold again, crinkling her nose when he kisses the tip of it.

“I’m ready,” she says with a nod, rocking her hips against him so he knows she’s sure.

It takes some maneuvering but soon Michelle is hovering above Peter’s face, staring down as Peter looks up at her thoughtfully, the gears turning in his head as he works out his plan of action. She squirms a little, the sight of someone  _ studying  _ her vagina making her uncomfortable even if it is only Peter. He works his jaw and exhales when he decides, the hot air making her squeak.

“Are you ready?” he asks. 

She can’t remember how to form words, not when she plants a hand on his chest to steady herself while his fingers flex at the top of her thighs, so she nods and squeezes her eyes shut, allowing him to guide her down until his nose skims her labia. His tongue makes contact and licks a broad stroke from her clit to her entrance. A shuddering gasp ripples through her, toes curling as he does it again, over and over.

It feels like a whole different experience from the last time he ate her out, the addition of her weight and the control the position offers as she nudges her hips back to focus his attention where she wants it flooding her with a heat so intense she’s gasping in minutes. 

Peter grips her tighter with every sound he draws from her, and when she shifts her position to relieve some of the burning in her muscles, she whimpers at the sight of his achingly hard length in front of her, how he thrusts against the empty air in desperation. Seeing how turned on this has him makes her throb impatiently, and it breaks the final scrap of control she’s managed to maintain; she rides his face with wild abandon, Peter’s moan vibrating so deliciously through her that her thighs clamp against his ears.

“Oh fuck,” she pants when he suctions his lips around her clit. Peter’s answering smile lessens the sensation but does little to dampen her chaotic climb to her peak. When he does it again, slipping a single fingertip inside of her at the same moment, her elbow buckles under her weight and she lands against his hard chest with a huff but Peter doesn’t let up, tongue working her in a way she didn’t even realise she liked until right now. 

She’s so close, barely breathing around the force that’s building - except Peter removes his mouth entirely, one hand kneading into the cramp she’d barely noticed in her calf, the other two fingers deep inside of her.

“Peter I swear to fucking - If you don’t go back to what you were just doing -”

“Enjoying yourself?” he says, smug, voice husky and wrecked in a way that makes her walls squeeze around him. “Just wanted to check.”

Michelle growls, but when she props herself up on shaky arms, she sees her revenge.

“Holy fuck, Michelle!” Peter’s hand falls back against the mattress when she licks her palm and wraps a hand around his length. “That… that’s not exactly fair.”

“‘ _ Lovers and warriors are not bound by the rules of fair play. _ ’”

Peter fucks into her fist with a choked gasp. “Not - Not fair  _ at all _ .”

Her thumb strokes over the bead of precum, and she noisily sucks the digit into her mouth, exaggerating her moan at the taste of him.

“This is how I die. I can’t believe my girlfriend is also my murderer.”

Michelle snorts and returns to her languid task, shifting her hips back to make it clear what he needs to do. The fingers inside of her begin to move again at a punishing rate, curling and searching until he finds the spot that makes her lose focus. Only then does he let his mouth come back into play, tongue lapping happily at her swollen clit as she grits her teeth and makes herself concentrate enough to give a halfway decent handjob while on the cusp of an earth-shattering orgasm.

Peter must sense the competitive flare he’s triggered in her, because on the next thrust there’s a third finger at play and she loses her grip on reality.

He sucks, hard and long, and she comes with a broken shout of his name, electricity crackling through her veins.

It takes several moments to return to herself. When she does, she almost comes again - untouched - at the sight that meets her opening eyes.

Peter’s hand, wrapped around hers, guiding her movements in his perfect rhythm, his fingers still wet from being inside of her.

She can’t tear her gaze away, fascinated by the angry red flush of his skin, the way his skin contrasts so prettily with hers, the tightness of his grasp against her. 

“Michelle, I - Shit, that was so hot,” he says, words slurring, his other hand gripping her ass tight enough to bruise. “I can’t believe you just casually quoted literature while you were riding my mouth. I’m never going to recover.”

Michelle smirks, the challenge already accepted. 

It doesn’t take long, once she takes him into her mouth and drags her nails up the tingling skin of his thighs.

Michelle rolls off of him and collapses at his side, stretching her hand down to find his. She can’t see his face over the panting that expands his chest, but he links their fingers and she lets her eyes slip closed.

Peter eventually shifts onto his side, pressing a delicate kiss to the bone of her ankle, trailing up her leg until he peppers her bruised knees with them. “I love you,” he whispers into her skin. “I… I love you.”

Michelle stares hard at the ceiling, wondering at what point between the first time he said it and now that it made her feel so bittersweet.

“How long do we have?” she asks, but her voice breaks, barely audible to her own ears. With the thrill of their initial reunion over, it just makes way for all the things she can’t bear to let herself feel - the beginnings of the pain she’ll feel the moment he leaves her behind again.

“MJ…” Peter sighs, lying his head against her stomach and pulling their joint hands to his mouth. “No matter what I say, it won’t make you happy.”

And isn’t that the worst part of all?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I turn facesitting into an almost 69? Yes. Yes I did. Oops.


	7. Doing it and doing it and doing it well, I represent Queens, she was raised out in Brooklyn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven decided I hate this fic but WHO CARES STILL POSTIN’

The next morning, Ned’s quiet entrance into her room is what wakes her. Or, more specifically, the rustling of the paper bakery bag he almost drops as he tries to close the door without slamming.

“Hey, fuckface,” Ned says affectionately, though it barely makes one corner of her mouth lift in amusement. “You okay?”

She can’t bring herself to pat the space behind her, so asks, “He’s not there, is he?”

Ned shakes his head, eyes pained, and toes off his shoes so he can approach the bed. He’s out of sight for only a moment, but then he’s there at her back, wrapping his arm around her.

“Why is it taking so long?” she cries into her pillow. “I just want him to come  _ home _ .”

“I know you do. We all want him home.”

“Except him.”

Ned pauses his thumb stroking over her knuckles for a second too long. “What do you mean?”

“If Peter wanted to be home, he’d have found a way to be here.”

“That’s not true, Em -”

She twists in his arms to fix him with a fierce look, wiping furiously at her tear tracks. “Peter isn’t the boy we knew anymore, Ned. He’s spent years on the run, trying to fix something that will probably never get fixed without him actually being around to get the job done. Do you even know what he’s been doing, these past few years? Because I sure don’t. He just turns up whenever he feels like it, like some kind of natural disaster - dragging us in until he decides to spit us back out and leave us to deal with the wreckage left in his wake.”

Ned’s never looked so conflicted, so unsure of what to say to her. He’s been her rock for years now, helping her through more things that she thought possible, but for the first time she feels the two halves of him at war - the side that is hers, and the side that is forever loyal to Peter.

“What are you saying?” Ned whispers, eyes searching hers.

“I’m saying… I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

* * *

Michelle cancels brunch with May, brushes off invitations to hang out with Ned, and spends her time moping on the couch with her big brother.

For three days, at least. Then she sucks it up and throws everything into her studies.

Ned, to his credit, takes the longest to back off. Three weeks. The day she goes to sleep without a single notification from him is a relief, but when she wakes up to nothing still, she realises that giving up the life she’d clung to for so long might not be as easy as she thought.

So when he calls her the following evening, Michelle dives halfway across the room in her haste to answer it, and the way Ned greets her makes it clear he’s missed her as much as she’s missed him.

“Don’t you ever cut me out again, got it, fuckface?” he scolds, his voice somehow cross and fond and relieved all at once.

She clutches the phone with two hands, wishing he were here right now to give her the bear hug she so desperately needs. “You got it, shithead.”

“Anyway, I got your ungrateful ass something.” Ned sounds a hell of a lot like he’s smiling. “It’s not much, and it’s not what you want, but…”

There’s a gentle patting; a self made drumroll that makes Michelle roll her eyes. “Just spit it out already.”

“I got you a date.”

“A date? Ned, why would you - You know I -” Michelle chews her bottom lip, considering her words. Even now, years later, they are careful with what they say;  _ you never know who could be listening in _ , she’d told him the night after it all fell apart, breaking their SIM cards and handing him a new one, Ned still in tears as she tried to logic her way through the tatters of their lives.

“You’re going to enjoy this one,” Ned says confidently. “I’ll stop by after class to give you the details.”

“Okay,” she says, heart pounding, trying to dampen the hope that dares to squeeze her lungs.

And Ned… Wow. It takes her a few tries to even register what he’s saying, carefully asking him to repeat himself over and over until she knows she hasn’t misheard him. Only then, when she understands, does she give in to the happy tears. Ned isn’t far behind, and they jump excitedly in each other’s arms until her downstairs neighbour screams to complain.

She doesn’t care in the slightest. Not today.

* * *

For the first time, when Peter climbs silently through her window, she is ready for him.

“MJ,” he sighs contently into her hair, holding her close as she clings to him a little harder. Michelle’s too giddy to say anything, messily kissing his cheek and then his mouth. “So you like your present, huh?”

“Mm.” Michelle kisses him a little more insistently. “I love it. Love  _ you _ .”

Peter relaxes in her arms, hand caressing down the small of her back and over the crown of her head. “I wish I could give you more - and I will, one day - but I hope this kinda makes up for all the missed birthdays and Christmases and anniversaries and… I’ve been looking forward to this night all week. Can’t wait to spend every second talking to you, holding you, touching you…”

Michelle presses a finger to his searching lips. “Not so fast, lover boy. That’s not quite the plan here.”

“What do you mean?” Peter asks cautiously.

“I mean that, just because you decided to turn up doesn’t mean I don’t already have plans of my own.” She reaches behind her to the dresser and when she returns, there’s a little black pair of cat ears stuffed awkwardly on top of her drying hair. “Ta-da!”

Peter smirks, hands finally settling at her waist. “You look adorable.”

“Just wait until you see the rest of it.” She hooks her arms around his neck and chuckles when he immediately moves to kiss her. “Peter we don’t have  _ time  _ for that right now.”

“Do we have something better to do?”

She rolls her eyes. Boys and their hormones making them dumb. 

“I’m taking you to a party.”

Peter is rigid suddenly, pulling away from where he’s nuzzling next to her ear to slowly shake his head. “MJ, I can’t -”

“You said we could do anything I wanted, and this is what I want. I want  _ normal _ , Peter. I want to hold your hand and hang out with you and Ned and not have to hide this huge part of my life... Just once.” She implores him to understand with her gaze, cupping his jaw when he starts to look away, uncertain. “It’s Halloween, Peter. The one night you get to be whoever you want to be. No one has to know you’re there.”

“It’s not safe, MJ. What if -”

“Believe it or not, drunk college kids don’t give a fuck about anything but themselves.” She bites on her bottom lip, trying to figure out how to make her face do the thing that makes boyfriends do whatever their girlfriends want. “Please, Peter.”

Her face must do the thing, because she sees the moment he gives in. “This is really fucking risky, MJ.”

“It’s okay,” she says with a coy smile, darting out of his arms to the pile of clothes she’s had ready for this moment. She throws something to his chest that he catches without looking away from her. “See? Everything is going to be fine.”

Peter lifts the mask up and gives her the World’s Most Unamused Face. “Really, MJ?”

“It’s a little on the nose,” she allows, “But you know what they say about hiding in plain sight.”

* * *

They step out of her apartment building in their costumes - Michelle with eyeliner whiskers and a little black dress to accompany her ears, Peter in a cheap Spiderman suit that pools a little around his sneakers - and she gets to hold his hand the whole way, tugging gently so they step into the sweeping tide of a tipsy public together.

Peter has never looked more uncomfortable, tugging awkwardly at where the costume stretches a little too tight around his chest - not that she’s complaining, her mind already running away from her with the thoughts of exploring what’s beneath it later on. It’s not easy to drag her back to reality, but the way he squeezes her hand in his, clammy and shaking, pulls her further into his body until she’s pressed into his side, tugging his arm around her and holding it to her hip. 

They’ve barely moved two feet but she reminds herself to be patient. This is the first time he’s been out in public since that day in Times Square. It’s going to be an adjustment.

Eventually, Peter must realise that not a single person has bothered to glance his way, and he allows her to guide him down the block. She can hear the stutter to his breathing, see the twitch in his neck as he compulsively checks around them. She laces their fingers tighter and holds her chin a little higher, hoping that she can help by presenting a united front.

Selfishly, and despite his obvious fears, Michelle is thrilled. Getting to spend this time with him, being outside and open about their relationship, reverts her right back to the young girl who’d fallen for Peter in the first place. She’s suddenly  _ nervous  _ about the way she grips his hand, whether she should loop her own arm around him, how long she has to wait before she snatches the chance to kiss him in front of the world. 

How does he feel about PDA? She’s never seen the appeal until now. Maybe he’d be into giving it a try.

“Hey, look,” she says softly despite the overwhelming noise of the street around them. “Ned’s here.”

Ned’s already spotted them, his Han Solo vest flapping in the breeze as he fights against the flow of pedestrian traffic. A grin takes over his whole face, eyes a little wet. Michelle steps to the side to give them space, her heart about to burst as Ned forgoes the fist Peter holds out and tugs him tightly against his chest.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Ned enthuses, squeezing his grip until Peter taps his arms twice in surrender. “This is the best night of my life and it’s not even begun yet.”

“Careful, buddy,” Peter says, his eyes narrowing behind the cheap mesh of fake-Spiderman’s mask. It makes her miss the real deal for a moment, and she can’t help wondering about when he last wore it; if he wishes he were in it now instead of the one she’d picked up on a self-amused whim after Ned told her of their plans.

When Ned’s face falls, Peter adds, “It’s good to see you, though.”

Michelle steps back to his side and gives Ned her best smirk. “Hey shithead. Lookin’ good.”

“Not so bad yourself, fuckface.” Ned falls into step beside them, arm around her shoulders while her hand swings lazily in Peter’s. “This is going to be  _ amazing _ . We deserve this; this is what we should have been doing all along! The three musketeers, taking college by storm.”

“Don’t call us that.”

“Don’t be a downer, MJ. You know you love it.”

They have to get on the subway to get to the party, an experience that terrifies Peter more than the open air. Ned talks incessantly about anything that comes to mind while Michelle sketches their names into Peter’s neck with her finger, scratching her black painted fingernails along the seam between the costume and the mask. 

Fortunately, it’s only a few stops, and they’re back on the street in no time at all. Peter doesn’t let go of her the whole time, but he feels a little more settled as time continues to stretch on. At this rate, she’ll take it as a win. He’s lasted longer than she thought he would.

Ned leads the way into the complex, handing out high-fives to everyone they pass. He’s always been a social butterfly in this respect, and when she glances to check on Peter for the thousandth time in a minute, there’s this soppy tilt to his head like he’s proud of his best friend, or like he’s happy for Ned flourishing in the way he always knew he would.

They make their way quickly to the make-shift bar, selecting their drinks and settling into a quiet corner of the room. Getting to talk as a trio is, quite possibly, one of the major highlights of her life. The conversation is okay at best, but the way they can laugh together as Peter loosens up is just like a dream come true.

She’d set herself up to nurse the one drink all night, but Ned talks her into a second and then wanders off to talk to a few classmates. It gives the couple a moment alone - one Michelle takes full advantage of, pressing the length of her body against his as he slumps against the wall. 

“Are you having fun?” Peter asks as he tangles a finger in one of her curls.

“The most fun.” Michelle purses her lips, eyelashes fluttering against her cheek in a sleepy, tipsy way. “Are you?”

“I’m with my girlfriend and my best friend. What more could I want?”

“What about… This?” Michelle slips a finger beneath her mask and drags it up over his chin - slowly, so as to not spook him - pausing when it’s gathered beneath his nose. Peter’s lips part in anticipation, his tongue darting out to wet his lips, but before he can overthink it she’s kissing him deeply, humming happily when he returns her fervour with a desperation of his own.

She’s quick to forget their surroundings, ravenous fingers slipping over the cheap fabric that separates her from what she wants most; the feel of his skin on hers, stroking and moving and grinding until they are peaking in their frenzy.

Peter’s no better, one hand already trailing up her thigh to dip beneath her floaty skirt. The thumping bass of the party disappears in favour of the racing of her heart.

Reluctantly, she pulls herself away, rolling his mask back down before he can chase her mouth. She feels the soft vibration of his hummed disapproval, but she pecks him quickly on the lips through the mask in recompense. She wants him; of course she does, but tonight isn’t about that. She has plans; a check list that needs completing. This is about more than just getting into each other’s pants in a new environment.

Though the thought is tempting…

Ned returns at the perfect moment, and the friends head out into the party fray. Two hours pass beautifully, first at the beer pong table (a game Peter effortlessly excels at) and then huddled against the cold out back, sharing pleasantries with all the people Ned introduces them to. They head back inside to dominate the dancefloor, introducing Peter to the horrific dance moves that Ned and MJ had created at senior prom while he laughs and pretends not to know them.

A shift in the music brings her into his arms again, moving together as Peter noses languidly at the exposed skin just below her neck. Michelle’s whiskers are smudged to high hell at this point, the stains instead pressed into Peter’s costume, but she’s never cared about anything less - getting to be here with him, experiencing this snapshot of a normal life, is all she’s wanted since the day he left.

“ _ That's why my heart's so sore, you have no idea what you mean to me, I don't want to leave you alone _ ,” she sings softly into his ear, a hand tangled with the damp hairs at the back of his neck beneath the mask’s edge. They’re dancing to their own beat now, delirious with the lust that’s been building between them all night. Peter’s already half hard against her pubic bone, his fingers dangerously close to groping her ass considering how public a place this is. “ _ You're the only one I want, I can’t stand the fact that's true, so I figured one last call can't hurt more than this wound. _ ”

People have started leaving the party but she’s too stubborn to give in yet - even Peter has suggested it a few times. She wants this night to last forever. Maybe then she can stop worrying about how painful it’s going to be to say goodbye once again.

She just holds him closer and focuses on committing it all to memory, ready to relive when she needs it like her favourite movie.

* * *

To no one’s surprise, all good things must come to an end. Ned drags them off the dancefloor at 3am, and they begin the walk home shortly after.

Michelle’s been thrown effortlessly onto Peter’s back, her cheek pressed to the crown of Peter’s head as she talks to Ned about the pros and cons of asking out the brunette that had monopolised Ned’s attention for the last few hours. Their pace is leisurely, yet another tactic in dragging out the inevitable, but no one would dare to complain. This is the last time they’ll be together for an unknown length of time, and the intention to drain it of every drop of quality time together is clear.

Still, the alcohol and the steady rock of Peter’s steps is enough to eventually lull her into that soft place between awake and asleep. It’s only when Peter lays her gently down on her bed that she stirs enough to realise what she’s done.

Immediately, she’s wide awake. Peter is half-way through slipping off her right shoe when he notices that she’s sitting up straight with a panic in her eyes.

“Are you leaving?”

Peter relaxes a little, putting her Converse beside its pair at the foot of the bed. He tugs off his mask to show his gentle eyes, hair matted flat against his forehead, cheeks the colour of bubblegum. “Just getting you comfy.”

“You know the best way to do that?”

Peter smirks, like he knows what’s coming. “What’s that?”

“You. Being next to me.” She pats the space beside her in invitation. “C’mere. Join me, oh gorgeous boyfriend of mine.”

“You don’t have to sweet talk me into being near you, you know.”  Peter kicks off his shoes and lands so heavily on the mattress that she’s airborne for a second.  “That was fun, right? It was a little weird at first, but you had fun?”

Michelle caresses his cheek with her finger. “It was everything I wanted and more. Thank you, Peter.”

“You don’t have to thank me. If anything, it should be me apologising for everything that made you choose to spend your perfect evening at a frat party surrounded by drunk people.”

“Are you kidding me? I got to hang out all night with my boyfriend and my best friend. What more could I want?” She kisses Peter’s fond smile at the callback, sweetly at first but then a little more insistently, twisting onto her side so she can pull his face ever closer and feel his arm wrap securely around her. When she breaks the kiss to catch her breath, she whispers seductively, “Speaking of want…”

Peter’s exhaled laugh is warm on her cheek, letting her press against his shoulders so she can straddle his lap. “You want something, MJ?”

She takes her time to press her lips against his once more, fingers dancing down his firm chest. “Do you?”

“I always want you.” Peter drops his head to the side, giving her more space to explore as she drags her mouth down the length of his throat. “Sometimes I can’t… I can’t think of anything else but wanting you.”

“Likewise.” Michelle reaches around to his back, lowering the invisible zipper of his costume at a torturous pace. She drags the fabric down his shoulders, kissing the newly exposed skin and preening at the longing sigh that disturbs her curls. “You’re like a craving I can’t satisfy. Every time I get what I want, I just want  _ more _ .”

“Do you still think of me? When you touch yourself?”

Michelle can barely see straight, driven to the brink after a night full of teasing touches. The thought of that first night, how he’d said such filthy things to her as she fingered herself, still plays on repeat in her mind like a twenty four hour newscycle. If it’s not that, it’s the second night, the feel of him moving against her; or maybe it’s every time she’s felt the push and pull of his fingers inside of her, or how solid he’d been in her mouth, fingers tangling in her hair.

“Of course I do.” She rocks against him, breathless as he rucks up her dress in his fists. “It’s worse now, though. I know what it feels like when you touch me.”

Peter groans when her teeth graze his collarbone as she speaks. “And what is it that you crave, Michelle?”

He strips her of her dress and nearly chokes on his tongue. She can only imagine what it’s done to him, seeing her like this; adorned in the lacy black underwear she’d spent an hour selecting the day before, the cheeky red bows that had made her smirk and confuse the salesperson. Peter’s jaw might never close again. Has he blinked at all in the last thirty seconds? She pokes him in the cheek in an effort to reanimate him.

“You okay there, babe?”

“You… Fuck. I don’t even have words.”

“That’s okay, I’m not in the mood for talking.”

Her back hitting the mattress catches her off guard, as does Peter’s immediate dive to her chest. His hands and his mouth ravage her, sending her into a kind of out of body experience that makes her dizzy with how much she wants him. Peter’s hand is not shy in nudging the crotch of her underwear to the side so he can tease her entrance. She’s barely got a decent grip on the bedsheet before he’s pushing a finger inside, the feeling heightened by his mouth wrapping around her nipple as he drags the cup down for access.

The sounds coming from between her legs make her whimper; she’s so wet for him it’s almost embarrassing, though she’s so worked up already she forgets to care. The second finger is accepted eagerly, spurred on by the soft moans she makes every time his movement drags her underwear across her clit. Peter turns his focus to her other breast. The sensation of his tongue has her tugging at his hair, and there’s a rip that immediately precedes the bra sliding clean off her chest.

“Was that really necessary?” she pants. With an unapologetic shrug, Peter returns his focus to riling her up further. She tries to make a mental note to be mad later, but he hits her g-spot on the next thrust and the only thing she can remember is how to moan his name.

“That’s it, Michelle. Wanna feel you fall apart on my fingers.” Peter dips lower, mouthing down her stomach until he can press the flat of his tongue against her clit. Within moments, the feel of his fingers and the heated attention he shows to her there has her hitting her peak with a silent scream.

He eases her back down with shallow movements, kissing her open-mouthed and filthy so she can taste herself. Instantly, her body is craving another release. She rolls them until she’s on top, rocking her hips against his as she helps him strip the costume from his torso.

“Peter,” she says slowly, her voice wrecked already from just one orgasm. “I want you to fuck me.”

He doesn’t react in the way she expects.

Peter’s smile drops in favour of an agony she doesn’t quite comprehend. “MJ…”

The rejection hits her cold and fast. “You don’t want to?”

“I do! God, MJ, of course I do. I just… I’ve pictured us sleeping together so many times, but it’s never been like this. I saw us taking our time, spending all night learning each other, figuring it out. This isn’t… If we have sex now, I’m going to have to leave you a few hours later and we won’t be able to talk about it, or try again; we can’t be sensible about it.” Peter interlaces their fingers, his eyes begging her to understand. “I’m not saying no. I’m saying… Not yet. Not like this.”

She takes a moment to breathe in and out, letting her brain digest his words and find the true meaning. “You want to wait. So it can be… Special.”

Peter kisses her knuckles with this childlike shine to his eyes, thumb tracing over where his lips have just been. “Is that okay?”

“You are so sweet it’s honestly disgusting.”

Peter laughs, shrugging one shoulder. “That doesn’t mean we can’t do other things…”

“Like… dry humping like horny teenagers?”

“Now you’re talking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter, you’re adorable but also... NEXT CHAPTER.


	8. I gave my best but it wasn’t enough… we made a mess of what used to be love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I have nothing to say.
> 
> Apologies in advance to T. I can FEEL your comment already.

She gets by on the memory of Halloween for months, looking constantly to the blurry selfie Ned had taken under the streetlight at 3am, his laughter frozen in time at a sleeping Michelle curling around Peter like a turtle’s shell. She puts it pride of place on her bedside table in the golden frame she’d upcycled from the thrift store. Getting to fall asleep with a smile on her face - and wake up with it still curling her lips - has her thriving at college, skipping over her junior year with the amount of work she’s able to get through. 

The mood can’t last for long though; not when Parker luck is involved. 

She’d feel bad for blaming all the bad things that happen on him, but this time it's 100% his fault. 

It’s all over the news when she comes out of her 3pm lecture, everyone’s phone lighting up with the news alert that will change her life.

_ Spiderman spotted in footage of collapsing building in Denmark! _

It doesn’t take her long to get in contact with Ned; not when the city is buzzing with the scandal.

“Don’t tell me it could be fake, Ned. I’ve watched the video! I know it’s him.” She runs a hand through her hair, pacing in the little alcove between two college buildings. “What the fuck is he doing in Denmark?”

“I have no idea, MJ. He doesn’t talk to me about these kinda things anymore.”

“He’s  _ never _ spoken to me about it. Every time I’ve tried to get him to open up, he shuts down and distracts me.”

“...Please don’t provide the details of how he does that.”

Michelle can’t help the huff of humour amidst the chaos of her day before she quickly sobers. “Ned, I’m really worried about this.”

“I know, I know. Maybe it’s time he stops getting away with it.”

“That’s all good and well, Ned, but it’s not like we know when -”

“I know that, too.” Ned sighs heavily. “We can’t talk about this here. Are you done for the day? I can meet you at Hangout D in forty minutes.”

She’s supposed to be in a class now, but there’s no way she’s going to manage sitting in a stuffy lecture hall for sixty minutes when her boyfriend is getting himself into trouble on the other side of the world. “I’ll be there in thirty. I’ll get you your usual.”

By the time he arrives, she’s just settled into a quiet corner of the book store’s little cafe, two steaming mugs on the table in front of her. Ned drops into the chair opposite, his gaze flickering nervously around the space in the way he’s unfortunately come to spend most of his time when they meet up outdoors. Ned flashes her a smile of gratitude at the strong smelling coffee and tears off the corner of his pastry to pop straight into his mouth. 

“Have you heard anything?” she asks, twisting the corners of her cardigan into her fists.

Ned turns the screen of his phone to show a message thread with May, a dull conversation about seasonal flowers filling the space.

Michelle sits back, relieved. “Thank fuck.”

“A couple of reports mentioned visible injuries.” Ned sips his coffee and winces when it burns his tongue. “No confirmation yet.”

“Any clues about what the building was?”

“Office block, mostly, though there’s a floor that used to be taken up by an experimental science group. What that has to do with proving his innocence, I have no idea.”

“Maybe it has nothing to do with proving his innocence.” Michelle glances up from her studious focus on her untouched tea, Ned frowning in confusion at her. “Come on, Ned. Don’t be naive. It doesn’t take nearly three years to find a way to prove one doctored video wrong.”

But Ned is already shaking his head. “It’s more complicated than that. He said -”

“Did he, though? Did he really say this is all still about him?” Michelle leans further over the table. “He doesn’t  _ say  _ anything.”

Ned looks more nervous than ever, gaze searching her face for what she can’t bring herself to say. “You don’t trust him?”

“It’s not about trusting him, Ned. I’m just saying, there’s a lot that doesn’t add up. Are you really saying you’re not curious about what’s actually going on?”

* * *

Four days later, she comes home to a bouquet of flowers already neatly placed into a vase by her mother.

Tears spring in her eyes, blending together the white orchids, red roses and baby’s breath; leaving the last one at its center in perfect focus - a single pristine black dahlia.

* * *

With the sweltering heat of a New York summer, Michelle resolves that enough is enough.

Her schedule freeing up with only one summer class to maintain, Michelle commits herself to becoming a detective. Her trusty anthology of Sherlock Holmes in hand, she heads to the library and dives headfirst into three years of Spiderman hints and tip offs.

The sightings are few and far between, mostly cropping up at times she’d already known he was in the city - there’s one dangerously close to her home, dated the morning after the night he’d stayed, that sends her into a mild tailspin before she corrects herself - so she expands the search, turning to international outlets and conspiracy theory Twitter accounts. This gives her far more to go on. Her intimate knowledge of Peter leads her to confirm several blurry photos and video clips, ones that have been reposted over and over, like something - or some _ one _ \- is trying to remove any trace of him. Several written accounts of sightings put him in places as far away as New Zealand, London, even one at the border of Russia.

Peter Parker has travelled the world, it seems, without ever letting on that he’d left the state.

By the end of a week, she has a binder full of printed clues. After two, she has a theory. A month in, and she has everything she needs.

She posts the photo of the pressed dahlia next to the book he’d defaced so long ago, captions it  _ Hide & Seek _ , and heads out into the late night’s cooling air.

The journey is as familiar as it is nostalgic, though she’d never been as anxious as she is right now, her knee bouncing erratically beneath the jacket in her lap, thumbnail bitten down until it’s in danger of bleeding. At the very least, it’s a little quieter. She gets a seat the whole ride there, eyes peeled for the faintest hint of anything unusual.

Breaking into Midtown Tech is so easy it’s boring. No one spots her - or cares to notice - and she’s tiptoeing through the halls within a few minutes, pocketing the lockpicking kit Ned had thought was a gag gift in freshman year of college. She can still smell the lingering scent of bleach from the janitor, the everpresent smell of chalk and sweat and  _ school _ that sends her memory reeling. It’s been two years since she graduated, but she can almost see their old classmates packed into the hallways; hear Flash and Betty bickering over their favourite show, Ned calling her name as he waits for Michelle before class with that wide grin she adores so much.

She takes a moment to herself, finding her locker with the rusting scratch in the paintwork, tracing the grating of Ned’s a few rows down before going to Peter’s. It’s pristine in a way that the rest are not, like no one has dared to touch it. Standing before it, she’s overcome once more with the mourning of a life they never got to live. He’s never kissed her here or held her hand, never flirted so badly that she has to roll her eyes and walk away. 

Out of everyone she knew in school, Peter is the one she can’t clearly picture here. All she sees is the faded memory of the back of his head as he walks on by.

Her heart  _ hurts _ .

She allows him three tears, one for each year. Then she returns to her plan.

The rooftop is cold, refreshing her as she props open the access door and heads for the edge. She halts just before she can see the ground and looks up. Light pollution means she’ll never see the stars, but she tries anyway. Maybe she can draw strength from them once more. 

The night after she’d returned from the dead, when the city was alive with the complex celebrations of a reunited universe, she’d stood on the rooftop of her apartment building, watching the fireworks tear the sky apart in vibrant shades of red and gold as her mother held her tight on her left with her brother hovering at her right. In that moment, a snapshot between one explosion and the next, she had sworn she’d glimpsed the twinkling of a million stars.

It was the most beautiful thing her brand new eyes had ever seen.

Michelle heads over to the old satellite dish and hangs up her jacket, the mustard yellow standing in stark contrast to the dark night.

Peter finds her within the hour, slightly out of breath and clutching her decathlon blazer in one hand, still clinging to the door of their practise room with the other.

Time stops. She’s leaning against the podium, a book she’s forgotten the plot of in one hand while she chews thoughtfully on an apple in the other. Peter’s watching her, or maybe he’s waiting. Either way, she knows it’s up to her to take the first step.

“You found me.”

“I found you.” She sees the way his throat moves with a nervous swallow. “Are you okay?”

“I’m always okay.” She smirks a little, unable to help herself. “So you got my message.”

“All 173 of your followers got your damn message. You weren’t even  _ subtle _ , MJ.”

With a shrug, she says, “I knew you were a creepy stalker.” She takes another bite of her apple. “Remind me to get Ned to change his password.”

Peter continues as though she hasn’t so carelessly brushed off his concern. “MJ, this was dangerous. What if someone else had figured it out before me? What if someone caught you here? What if -”

“I can take care of myself, Peter. And I needed to see you.”

Finally, he lets go of the door, easing it closed to reduce any potential noise. He steps through the huddle of desks, leaving her jacket in favour of reaching for her. She goes willingly, and when he kisses her, it’s hard enough to bruise. 

“I’ve missed you,” he mumbles against her lips, “Regardless of how stupid this was, I’m glad you did it.”

He won’t be, once she rediscovers her resolve. But for now, she’s content to fall back into old habits, looping her arms around his neck to pull him closer. Peter’s solid and warm against her, his palms moving over the curve of her waist like they were designed for it. When he licks into her mouth, she’s barely able to remain upright without assistance.

It’s a bizarre feeling to have her brain and body at war; one craving more, one craving answers. 

“Peter,” she gasps as he tears himself away only to bury himself in her neck, tongue caressing all of his favourite places. “Peter, I - I’ve missed you too but… This isn’t why I called you here.”

Peter just grunts, hands slipping beneath the swooping hem of her shirt.

She sighs, giving in to the moment just a little longer, before she pushes gently at his shoulders and steps back, his lips smacking as he releases the vacuum he’d made on her throat. “Peter, I’m serious.”

He looks as confused as he does dishevelled. “Is something wrong?”

“You tell me.” She reaches for the overflowing binder on the podium, slapping it against his chest with more force than necessary. “Go on. Have a look.”

He’s reluctant to go, but Peter sulks out of her personal space and to the closest desk, hopping onto the tabletop and opening the binder from one of the frayed cardboard edges.

It shouldn’t take him more than a cursory glance.

He gets it in three and a half seconds.

Peter’s silent for a very long time, turning pages and examining folded notes like he’s a professor grading her final project. It feels a little like that, too, the first inklings of doubt occurring when he reaches the halfway point without saying a word. Maybe she really has just lost her mind, joining the fray of crazy conspiracy theorists that she’s spent a month trying to muddle through their facts and fiction.

“How did you get all of these?” His voice is too quiet, the words clipped. “What have you been up to, MJ?”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“You shouldn’t have been able to find any of this.”

“You can’t just  _ delete  _ information from the internet, Peter. It’s the  _ internet _ .”

The way he looks at her is not the way she’s come to expect from her boyfriend, his jaw tense as he discards all of her hard work carelessly to one side. “Are you trying to find trouble? I can’t fathom what else would possess you to -”

“Don’t try to make me the bad guy here! I’m not one of your villains that you can sass and beat down; I’m the girl who’s spent three years being in love with a fucking liar.” She steps closer, trying to reign her temper back in; except Peter meets her challenge head on with flaring nostrils and a vein pulsing in his neck. “Were you ever going to tell me? Or was I just supposed to submit to this absentee kind of a relationship until the day I die?”

“MJ -”

Her palm slams onto the cover of the binder with a resounding  _ bang _ . “Answer the fucking question, Peter! When you stop trying to save yourself?”

“I don’t know!” The answer crashes into her like he’s slapped her, her body reeling back a step from the force. “I didn’t, I mean… I haven’t. It’s not as simple as that.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t you lie to me. Not any more!”

“I never lied to you! I couldn’t do that; not to you.” Peter wipes furiously at his wet eyes with the heel of his hands. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought this was good.”

“How can any of this be good? Ned and May and I, we’ve spent three years waiting for you. Our whole lives stuck on pause. Where is the good in that?”

“You’re all in danger if I’m here. I was trying -”

“I already told you, don’t bullshit me like that! I don’t believe you!” Michelle steps towards him, cupping his cheek as she tries to desperately hold his gaze. “Please, Peter. Help me understand.”

“I… I can’t tell you, MJ, I’m sorry.”

And no. She was wrong.  _ This  _ is what feels like a slap to the face. A punch to the gut. A knife to the heart.

“Can’t, or won’t?”

Peter’s face says it all.

“We were supposed to be more than this by now,” she sobs. “We could have been happy. We could have been  _ together _ . Not just stolen moments; a whole life that we’d have figured out together. I thought when you came back, that you’d want that too.”

_ Maybe we just aren’t good enough for you _ , she wants to yell at him, but Peter stops dead in his tracks, something like disbelief and hope filling his tear-stained face. “You… You think about stuff like that?”

“Sure.” She crosses her arms around herself, shrinking away when he stumbles towards her. “You see your boyfriend eight times in three years and discover there’s a lot of down time. The mind tends to wander.”

His head tilts to the side, softening with the slow blinking as he eases closer still. “What else do you think about?”

“Uh.” Scratching her forehead, Michelle considers her next words for about half a second. “I guess I thought about after college. Where we’d go. What we’d do.”

“And what’s that?”

“We would rent some crapbox apartment where nothing worked properly and you’d hang up all my sketches even though it’s against the lease. There’d be jobs and too much takeout and we’d fight all the time, but never for long and only over the stupid things. You’d probably bring home a stray dog at some point, even though I’m allergic.” The words are flowing out of her now, like a broken faucet that’s flooding the entire house. “We’d get a better apartment eventually, somewhere closer to my parents and your aunt. Ned would have his own key because he spends so much time there, and when we’re 26, you’d… You’d propose. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, though with your track record we’d probably only make it to the park, but it’d be beautiful and I’d say yes because, even after everything, I loved you, and that’s what matters, right? Being with the people you love, for as long as you can.”

The way Peter crashes into her is a tidalwave. There’s teeth clashing and tears mingling and a desperation that claws at her chest. One second his hands are in her hair, the next encasing her hips, pushing and pulling at her to be closer still. This kiss is different to every other they’ve shared, and she can’t put her fingers onto why; not when he’s lifting and depositing her onto the closest desk, her fingers making quick work of his belt.

The moment she’s unfastened his jeans, she shoves her hand inside to grasp firmly at his hardening length. His moan vibrates through her skull, sending shockwaves through her entire body until it pulses between her legs.

Michelle knows what she wants. She’s tired of waiting around for it.

This is for the girl in her dreams, the one who can’t picture a life without him. 

Peter’s grip supports her as she rises to rid herself of her jeans, only managing to kick one foot free before he loses patience in waiting. He ruts against her deliciously and they inhale the other's pants for breath as she fumbles with the waistband of his boxers. She whines at the sight of him springing free, arching her back to seal their mouths together once more. 

The air crackles with the heat between them, three years in the making.

She only pulls back for a moment, just enough to check he wants it too. When he nods, she takes him in hand and lines him up with her entrance, and he slides home with a delirious moan as they join for the first time.

It’s an adjustment; it feels different than she expected, like she’s too full but in a really good way.

“Breathe,” Peter reminds her softly. Her exhale is heavy, but when it’s out, she feels like when Peter has his fingers moving inside of her, and it drags a broken whine from her throat. 

She hooks her ankles and pushes him deeper, letting him pull back and then encouraging him forward once more. On the fourth thrust he bottoms out, grinds against her, and she sees those new beginning fireworks all over again. 

Her arms wrapped around his shoulders keep her steady, his strong grip on her hips rooting her to the moment. It’s everything she could have ever wanted, even as they work to find a rhythm, the desk screeching in protest against the linoleum. 

Peter kisses her like it’s the end of the world. 

Maybe it is.

He fumbles for her clit, but it’s too late; just moments after they find the pace that suits them both, Peter spills inside of her with a sob of her name and a tremor that engulfs his body as she smoothes a hand down his spine.

His fingers twitch against her, his brain rebooting to bring her the pleasure he feels she needs, but there’s no helping her. She’s empty, even before he’s slipping out of her.

Pulling away from her lips, his eyes burn into her. She wonders if he can see right into her soul, the place where she’s come to her final realisation.

“MJ,” he whispers, but she’s already brushed past him, tugging her jeans back up her hips, unable to look back in fear that she’ll run straight back into his arms.

Because she knows, now. If tonight has proved anything, it’s that Peter loves her, but it’s not enough.

She finally sees what she’s been blind to all these years; she’s waiting around for a boy who may never find her enough to come home to, and she deserves better. Michelle is worth more than to be loved from afar.

That was for dream girl. This is for  _ her _ .

“Please, MJ. Where are you going?”

“I’m going home, Peter. Maybe you should do the same.” She wipes at her tears, her inhale trembling as she forces her feet to move. One step, two steps, until she’s walking out of the room.

The door closes behind her, her final words left to echo around the room with their final memories.

“That was goodbye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good-for-her.gif
> 
> @mjonesing on tumblr as always


	9. Don’t think I’m coming back, it’s just a relapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how’re we all doing? Feeling good? Hopefully you’re prepared for a little more angst (and by little, I mean A LOT.)
> 
> Do not expect the next chapter to be an easier, or on time. Because I haven’t written it. I will probably get there... Eventually. 
> 
> Just remember this has a nice ending, okay?

“ _ A ‘hello again’ after the final goodbye is sometimes harder than just keeping the goodbye as it was. _ ”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that by being here, you’re making it impossibly more difficult for both of us.” Michelle trains her gaze on her laptop, refusing to look away from the blinking indicator that marks her new paragraph. “Go now and I’ll forget you tried.”

“If you think I’m really going to do that, you don’t know me very well.”

The pulse of heartbreak should be familiar by now, but it’s been a week and it still feels like the first instance; like the moment she walked away, or when he left or maybe even that moment in Times Square - at what point did her heart truly first break? How long has she been walking around with this open wound, pretending she has fixed it a bit of a tape and a generous helping of delusion?

“If you think I know you at all, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

“MJ, please.”

It’s her name that breaks her, standing up so abruptly that her chair clatters to the floor. He looks so small, standing in front of her window soaking wet from the rain, his heavy jacket dripping on her carpet, long hair matted to his forehead and getting in the way of his big puppy dog eyes that beg for her to take it all back.

But she won’t. She’s made the right decision and she knows it.

Despite that, her voice wavers as she asks, “Why are you here, Peter?”

“To tell you…” Michelle giving in emboldens him to take a few steps towards her, his hands hovering between them as he thinks better of reaching for her. “To tell you that you were wrong.”

She splutters in her disbelief. “Excuse me?”

“The things you said about our future. You were wrong.” Peter runs his fingers through his hair and the gears turn in his mind, trying to find the words that will put a stop to the anger that slowly fills her. “Not all of it, but… we wouldn’t get too much takeout because you love to cook. I wouldn’t bring home a dog  _ because _ I know you’re allergic; it’d be an old cat or a fish or something stupid that you’d hate my ridiculous names for. And…”

Peter reaches for her hand and succeeds, stroking a thumb over her knuckles as his voice softens to barely a whisper. “And I wouldn’t propose at the Eiffel Tower. I’d want to do it in our home, where it’s just the two of us in the place we’ve made together, and there wouldn’t even be a plan because I’m terrible at those, right? We’d probably be watching something inane on TV or you’d be reading beside me on the couch and I’d just… I’d look at you and it would slip out.”

His words hang in the air until she can scarcely breathe. What does he think he’s doing, breaking into her room and saying all the things it’s too late to say? Michelle of two years ago - a year; hell, even three months ago - would be thrilled by it, falling into his arms with all the emotion of a period drama. 

But that Michelle didn’t know what this one knows now. 

That instead of saving himself, he’d been sneaking around the world doing things she still can’t understand.

And that’s the thing about it, in the end; why keep hurting herself for someone who’s not even willing to try?

Peter was her dream boy, yes, but dreams are meant for sleeping. She can’t spend her life waiting for it to come true.

“Is that all you have to say?” She crosses her arms, putting the space back between them. “You wanted to come here and tell me all the things I thought were in our future and then - what, leave me to wait around for you again? I’m not doing it anymore, Peter! You’ve put us all through hell for  _ years  _ without any explanation, without making any effort to fix it!”

He’s shaking his head, panicking at the rising volume of her voice. “No, I’ve been -”

“I’m  _ tired _ of hearing your bullshit, Peter. You may have everyone else fooled, but I’m done pretending you feel for me the way I feel for you.”

“Is… Is that really what you think? That I don’t love you? Are you kidding me?”

Even the incredulous look on his face isn’t enough to sway her. “If you really loved me, you’d have found a way to make it work.”

“I’m trying, MJ! This is me, trying to find a better way!”

“You’re trying to put things back to how they were, but I’ve told you that’s not what I want!”

“Then what do you want?!”

“I want you to be here! I want you to  _ want  _ to be here!” She’s shouting, arms thrown wide as Peter juts out his chin and stands his ground. “I want Peter Parker back, not Spiderman.”

“That’s who I am!”

“No, you’re not! Spiderman is Peter Parker, but you are  _ so much more _ than that. You’re a friend and a nephew; you’re a good guy who wants the best for the world even at the sacrifice of himself, but you don’t have to. You can have both, but you’re choosing anyway. All it shows the people who love you is that Spiderman is more important to you than them.”

“That’s not true, MJ, how can you think that? I’m trying to protect you guys -”

“How can you protect us if you’re not here?!”

“Because I’m who you need to be protected from!” Peter’s voice cracks. “Do you not understand, the reason you’re all safe, is because I saved you? Your life has been threatened so many times but I kept you safe because I love you - but that doesn’t change the fact you wouldn’t be in danger if I wasn’t around.”

“Did it ever occur to you that we know that? That we chose you anyway because having you is worth far more than the possibility of something happening? I could walk out that door right now and get hit by a bus or something fall from the sky and squash me flat or hell, even just touch a faulty socket wrong and bang, I’m gone. We are never safe, not really. You can’t save everyone, but you can choose to spend your time with the people you love while they’re still around.”

“I’d rather you have a long life without me than a short one with me.”

“That’s not your choice to make -”

But he continues like she hasn’t spoken. “Staying at a distance keeps you safe. You have no idea what I’ve been doing and -”

“Because you won’t  _ talk _ to me! How am I supposed to know if you won’t talk to me?!”

“Why can’t you just trust me -”

“How can I trust you when you don’t trust me? We spent three years in a relationship that you weren’t even present for and I couldn’t say a word about! The only time I got to speak to you was when you bothered to turn up, and then all we did is fool around - every time I tried to talk to you about our lives, you’d be too focused on me to actually  _ see  _ me!”

“You make me sound like I’m some asshole -”

“You  _ are  _ an asshole!”

“I just want you to -”

“Oh my  _ God _ , Peter, just  _ shut up! _ ”

“Why don’t you make me?”

Time stops. Neither of them move or breathe, the endless moment too fragile, too full of things still unsaid and the potential of something renewed. 

But then they blink, and:

Michelle collides with Peter’s body like two nuclear bombs making impact with each other. It’s rough and fierce and full of a hopeless fury. He kisses her with too much teeth and his fingers tear holes into her jumper, while she tugs hard at his shirt and his hair. Clothes fly carelessly in any direction, already forgotten in favour of touching each other, her nails clawing angry red lines into the skin of his back while he gropes at her ass to wrap her legs around him.

Peter’s mouth trails a fiery path across her jaw, down the long line of her throat, sucking and biting at all the places he remembers make her toes curl. Her back hits the wall so hard that her mirror smashes to the ground, but she barely notices when he grinds against her after a particularly hard tug of his hair. She’s panting already, a drawn out moan clawing its way from her chest when he fumbles a hand between her legs and presses a finger inside of her. 

She pulls him back to her mouth, the kiss open and filthy. It feels like she’s not herself, like he’s not Peter; they’re a little more than strangers but what else can she label them as? He’s not her boyfriend anymore, and they’ve yet to figure out anything else. Yet she craves him, despite fucking him less than a week ago, despite swearing herself off of him, despite all the reasons she has to not let him finger her into the quickest orgasm of her life.

Her teeth sink into the juncture of his neck and shoulder as she lets go, the scream of his name muffled against his sweaty skin.

Before she’s even fully returned to herself, the feel of his fingers is replaced by the nudge of his dick at her entrance, and she presses him in by squeezing her thighs and locking her ankles at the small of his back. Peter’s moan is pornographic in her ear, and with another tug she’s kissing him again like he’s the last drop of water in the middle of the desert.

There’s no patience left; this is nasty and dirty, their pain and frustration all cresting in the harsh slap of his hips against hers. She prefers it this way. She’s rather an angry fuck than a sad farewell. This way she gets to still hate him a little for what they’ve become, broken and empty with no way out but through.

“Harder,” she exhales into his mouth, and if there’s one thing he still excels at, it’s following her instructions. His rhythm is brutal, their lips just brushing as they put their all into chasing this one last release. 

He grapples with her thigh as he nears his end, hitching her higher up the wall only to let her crash back down into the force of his thrust, and she’s sobbing with how exquisite it is, grasping her own breast in an attempt to fulfil the desire of being touched everywhere at once, rolling her nipple and rising and falling and rising and falling and rising, rising, rising -

Peter’s hand is the only thing to quell the scream that escapes her as she falls apart in his arms, barely hearing him praise her name as he follows her into the abyss of their own creation. 

He twitches inside of her with the squeeze of her aftershocks, burying his face into her neck as she drops her sweaty forehead to his shoulder, pressing a lazy kiss to his collarbone. 

In the hazy glow of her powerful orgasm, she forgets all the reasons to not let him kiss her with all the love he can summon; she forgets not to kiss him back in the way she needs; slowly, passionately, for no other reason than because she wants to be close to him, even if it’s only for a moment.

“MJ,” he whispers, “I don’t want to lose you.”

“I know.” She strokes over his swollen lips with her fingertips. “But I don’t want to be the girl you leave behind. Not anymore.”

“I never wanted to make you feel that way.”

“I know that, too. And I know that you love me. But love doesn’t change what’s been broken for a really long time now.” Michelle kisses him one last time, a tear slipping from her eyes and falling down his cheek. “I can’t be with you if you’re not here.”

And what is there for him to say? It’s clear he’s not prepared to return home, even when he’s about to lose her.

“Tell me the truth,” she begs despite herself. “Tell me what you’ve been doing in all those countries and -“

But the look on his face is all the answer she needs, no matter how torn he seems, because if he’s not willing to tell her when he’s about to lose her forever, then when will he?

She detangles herself from him, tearing herself away to grab her robe from the foot of her bed. “I’m going to shower,” she says, voice thick with the tears she’s holding back, “When I come back, you’ll be gone.”

She’s out of the door before he can protest, and she spends an extra fifteen minutes washing him from her skin just in case.

Sure enough, when she returns, Peter is gone.

Somehow, that’s worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM NOT SORRY OKAY. 
> 
> Peter is being a twat and I stand by MJ’s decision. 
> 
> For the next one, be prepared for another time jump...


	10. Oh no more mistakes, ‘cause in your eyes I'd like to stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not saying this chapter is good, but I successfully wrote it and that’s what counts, right?
> 
> I won’t go on - gotta work out how to end this whole thing - but thanks for sticking with it if you’re still here! Next chapter: ANSWERS.

Michelle graduates top of her class with her mom, brother and best friend cheering her on. 

A year later Ned graduates, also top of his class, with his family and best friend cheering him on. He looks so cute in his robes, pulling faces at her embarrassing antics from the stage.

She has to get him back somehow. 

She makes him a sparkly banner and everything. 

There’s a rhythm to her life now - work, eat, sleep - but it’s good for her. Michelle thrives.

So when the breaking news broadcast interrupts the flow of her work day, she doesn’t crumble the way she had once thought she would. Instead, she sees the headline and that damned photo from sophomore year and she can smile.

Peter Parker, six years later, has finally saved the one person who matters most; himself.

She turns in her chair and returns to her task, a little piece of her heart mending with every cheer of his name.

* * *

In the blink of an eye, Michelle is suddenly turning 24.

Her boyfriend, a good guy called Ethan who perhaps doesn’t really know her at all, throws her this huge surprise party at the local bar she’s first met him at. Nearly everyone she loves is there, grinning at her as she presses a hand over her pounding heart and forces a smile.

After a hundred exchanged pleasantries she makes a beeline for Ned, who’s been lingering on the edge of the chaos with that look on his face that means he is  _ thinking _ .

“You couldn’t have warned me?” she says between clenched teeth as she hugs him, batting away the cluster of balloons that dare to invade her space. 

Ned pulls back to give her a funny look. “You didn’t know?”

“Does it look like I knew about this?”

“How did you not -” But before Ned can explain whatever is causing his brow to furrow that way, Ethan is wrapping an arm around her shoulders to press a wet kiss to her temple, grinning proudly as he surveys the scene.

“Whatcha think, babe? You like your surprise?”

“It’s great,” she says with as much enthusiasm as she can muster; not a lot, especially when Ned is pointedly avoiding her gaze. ”Good job with uh, all of this.”

“Ha!” Ethan punches Ned good-naturedly on the shoulder. “And you thought she might not enjoy a surprise party.”

Ned hums, distracted. “Yeah, you really proved me wrong.”

She’s dragged away by a coworker before she gets the chance to press for answers, and then two hours pass in a whir of conversation and throwing back the alcohol eagerly pressed into her sweating palms.

Only when the small crowd has taken to the dancefloor does she get her chance to escape, Michelle excusing herself to the bathroom and then heading straight for the door.

The cool summer air is a welcome balm to her overheated skin, a gentle breeze lifting the floating hem of her polka dot dress so it skims against the skin of her lower thigh. She takes three deep breaths and slumps against the brick wall, hidden just out of sight of the entrance, and squeezes her eyes closed against her foggy tequila vision.

It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate the sentiment of the party; she knows that Ethan means well and only wants her to have a good birthday - how was he to know after four months of dating that her inherent need to know all clashes with the concept of surprises? That the truth - the most important thing of all to her - cannot be something that is upheld to keep such a thing a secret? It’s clear that Ethan has worked tirelessly on this, even managing to rope in her brother and Ned, tracking down her various circles of friends to bring them all together in one place, just for her. 

It’s sweet, and it’s kind, and it’s the second worst thing that’s ever happened to her.

“MJ?”

Her eyes spring open to be met with the person that caused the first.

“Peter?” She pushes off the wall to peer a little closer through the darkness of the alleyway, and sure enough, the figure that steps towards her is no other than her ex-boyfriend.

_ Really? _ She can’t help thinking,  _ on my birthday? _

“Wow. Hi.” Peter finishes tugging down his shirt, stuffing something red and too recognisable into his backpack. He looks a little flushed, his hair a mess from the mask that no longer serves its original purpose, but mostly he just looks good. Healthy. A far cry from the boy she’d left in her bedroom that night four years ago.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, wrapping her arms around herself. 

It may have been nineteen months since his return to the regular world, but she’s successfully managed to avoid seeing him; not that it’s hard in a city of eight million, but considering her continued friendship with Ned and correspondence with May when the guilt weighs particularly heavy, she’s yet to have seen even a glimpse of him swinging overhead. Peter’s assured innocence had led to him returning to the regular patrols that once consumed his evenings, and his new public image leading him in a direction where he could enact real change as both versions of himself. 

Ned doesn’t talk about him often, but it wasn’t hard to keep up with the goings on of a local celebrity. Despite cutting him out of her life for the sake of her heart, she still  _ cares. _

“I tracked Ned here,” he says, running his fingers through his hair in a failed attempt to fix it. “I guess I hadn’t put your birthday and his important plans together.”

Michelle nods, chewing on her bottom lip for a moment. “Oh. Yeah, he’s inside.”

“Cool.” Peter makes no attempt to move. “Happy Birthday, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

An awkward silence engulfs them, and for the first time in her life, Michelle wishes she smoked; even just for something to do with her hands other than fidget ridiculously under his sharp gaze.

“Are you uh, are you having a good night?”

Michelle doesn’t bother to fake a smile. Peter will see right through it. “It’s fine.”

“Fine? Ouch. What happened to vodka and movie night?” Peter chuckles, but stops short when he sees Michelle watching him suspiciously. It shouldn’t surprise her, really, how intune he was with her life despite never being around; vodka and movie night had only come about the first year of college, an ongoing tradition she had been content to uphold before Ethan had insisted on taking her to dinner.

“Did you want me to get Ned for you?”

“No, it’s okay.”

Michelle’s suspicion only grows. “I thought you wanted to see him.”

“Oh!” Peter throws his backpack over one shoulder and holds the strap tight enough that his knuckles turn white. “I just meant, I already text him.”

“Right.” She slumps back against the wall, then shakes her head. “Well, it was nice to see you again.”

She turns to leave, the whole encounter making her feel unreasonably nauseous, when -

“MJ, wait.” Peter’s suddenly grabbing her hand and it’s like lightning has struck - every hair of her arm stands on end as a sharp jolt fires through her nervous system. She looks down at the place they’re touching in horror and Peter lets go instantly. “I’m sorry, I just - Maybe we can talk?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she snaps, her thoughts still frazzled by the memory of his touch. She clears her throat, softening her voice to add on, “It’s been four years, Peter. Anything you want to say is years too late.”

Peter steps closer, his dark eyes locked onto hers. “I know, I know. I can’t change anything, but… I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For everything, really, but mostly, I’m sorry for hurting you.” Peter’s earnest sincerity is what draws her in helplessly, like no time has passed at all. “You deserved so much more than what I put you through, and you were right to break up with me. It was the push I needed to really see all the things I’d taken granted and I guess what I’m also trying to say is… Thank you.”

Michelle is too taken aback to completely take in everything he’s saying to her, her brain barely processing the  _ I’m sorry  _ that she never expected to receive from him. It’s the strangest feeling, because she’d spent a long time after that final night waiting for him to come back to her, to apologise a hundred times over and cast her under his spell once more. Still, to this day, despite years of growing and moving and changing, she can’t bring herself to lock her bedroom window. Yet it’s taken a chance meeting outside a half decent bar to bring her a little of the closure she desperately needed from that chapter of her life.

“Oh. Well, you’re welcome?”

So it’s not the most eloquent of responses. What else is she supposed to say? She’d said her piece back when it still mattered.

Peter sucks on his tongue, scratching the back of his neck, suddenly unable to even look her way. “It’s weird. I’ve thought about all the things I’d say to you if I ever saw you again, and now that you’re here, I can’t re-”

“MJ! There you are!” Michelle’s blood runs cold as the sound of Ethan’s voice cuts into the thick air that surrounds them. “Are you okay? You kinda - Holy shit, is that Spiderman?!”

Michelle tenses as Ethan slings an arm around her shoulder, grinning obliviously in Peter’s direction.

“Wow, dude, it’s so good to meet you! Always believed in you.” Ethan shoots him a finger gun and winks, mortifying the girl tucked into his side. Peter manages a grimace that must make Ethan aware of the residual tension. Ethan clears his throat and holds her a little more securely. “Babe, you never told me you know Spiderman.”

“I don’t,” Michelle says like a knee jerk reaction, a leftover trait from years gone by, at the same time that Peter says, “We went to high school together; no big deal.”

It shouldn’t hurt. She spent so long denying his existence in her life, but it’s the first time she hears him brush aside her role in his life.

“High school?” Ethan looks down at her with wide blue eyes. “Wow. That’s crazy. I’m Ethan, by the way, MJ’s boyfriend.”

“Peter, please,” he says, accepting the handshake, never quite taking his eyes off of her. 

“This is so crazy, you guys bumping into each other on MJ’s birthday,” Ethan says in awe, his easygoing demeanour carrying the conversation single-handedly. “Hey, you wanna come in for a bit? There’s a couple more of MJ’s high school friends inside; you could catch up with them. Ooh, do you remember Ned Leeds? Great guy. Helped me fix my whole apartment up to this app on my phone!”

The whole time Ethan is talking, Michelle is growing more and more panicked and Peter looks more terrified than she’s ever seen him - which is a lot, considering.

“So are you interested?” Ethan tilts his head to the side with this hopeful little smile, his cropped blond hair unmoving in the shift of gravity.

“I - I really shouldn’t,” Peter begins, but Ethan insists, “Nonsense! We’d love to have you, wouldn’t we, babe?”

“Sure,” Michelle says through gritted teeth. “I could do with a drink, anyway.”

“I think I’ll join you on that one.” Peter readjusts his backpack, now very interested in the sidewalk as he steps properly into the streetlight. “First round is on me.”

* * *

How did she get here? 

She can’t remember, can’t think of anything but  _ hands _ .

There’s too many of them and not enough at the same time, the caress of her lovers making her body sing in ecstasy. Ethan kisses her like she’s the last of the water in the middle of a desert, tugging at the straps of her dress until he has better access to her chest. She stumbles back until she hits the wall of her bedroom, dragging him with her so she can feel his body heat warming the iciness that settled into her bones a few hours before.

If Ethan kisses her desperately, the way Peter touches her can only be described as worshipping. It’s all she can think about, his fingers kneading at the muscles of her thighs as he eases them further apart, just enough to slip her underwear down and trail a fingertip through her arousal. Her hips chase his retreating touch and Ethan’s groan vibrates in his chest like a heavy bass.

She’s already quivering in excitement. Maybe they should move to the bed.

“Fuck, you’re so wet and tight for me.” Ethan widens her stance so he too can fit there, going straight for gold by sliding two fingers inside of her. She moans but it’s barely for him. Peter’s worked his way up and is whispering filthy things into her ear as he circles her clit with the perfect pressure.

She’s delirious with the need for  _ more _ , tugging his face to hers so she can kiss him in all the ways she’s ever dreamed. Her fingers tangle in his hair so she can kiss deeper, harder, four years of learning to live without the ghost of him unravelling with every gasped breath she manages, riding her boyfriend’s fingers with everything she’s got as her ex works her over with a scary amount of efficiency.

“Shit, fuck,” she curses as her toes begin to curl, sweat beading in her exposed cleavage. “Faster! Fuck! Harder, please!”

Ethan’s fingers curl and Peter tugs at her hair just right at the same moment he scrubs furiously at her clit and then the orgasm crashes into her like a natural disaster, tearing her apart and stitching her back together a thousand times in a handful of seconds.

A strong pair of arms catches her as her knees give out, cradling her as she’s carried the short distance to the bed. 

She clings to him, arms locked around his neck, knowing that when she opens her eyes she won’t be met with the deep brown of Peter’s, but the icy blue of the wrong man. 

It’s the first time since getting together with Ethan that she’s even thought of Peter during sex, his touch once enough to wipe all thought of what she lost out of her mind.

But now she’s been confronted with him once more, and all her brain can manage is  _ yeah, Ethan’s good, but you know who was better? _

She flushes, hot and furious, now remembering exactly how she got here:

How Peter had come into the bar and made awkward conversation with their school friends, talking about his life without ever revealing a thing.

How she’d felt his eyes on her for the rest of the night, even as she gave him a wide berth in favour of anyone else.

How an hour later he’d siddled over with this strange look on his face and given his excuses, shaking Ethan’s hand and then wrapping an arm around her.

How he’d taken the chance to lean in and whisper in her ear, “I still want to see you, please, if you’ll let me. Meet me in the decathlon room tomorrow night.”

She can’t shake the temptation of it, not when she drags Ethan home early to fuck her into the mattress over and over until sun up; not when she goes for a morning jog or even when she crashes out midmorning, her dreams full of memories she’s fought so hard to bury deep within her mind.

And even when she’s staring up at the looming moonlit entrance of her high school, she’s trying to stop herself.

The last time she’d walked through those doors, she’d been powered by a folder of information she didn’t understand and a fierce determination.

But now she’s reluctant, hesitating to take more than a few steps - nothing good can come from whatever waits for her inside, she’s sure of it.

Yet there’s something stronger than all of that, something integral and important to her entire existence, that forces one foot in front of the other until she’s got a hand wrapped around the door handle.

It’s been six years of deceptions, but today? Today is the day Peter tells his truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @mjonesing on Tumblr as always


	11. We got a lot at stake, and in the end you're still my friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How I finished this - on time and everything - is completely beyond me, but I DID IT!
> 
> For the final day, I chose the prompt to be ‘kiss’. 
> 
> A huge thank you to @spideysmjs for organising this Thotumn event, and to my favourite people in the world who championed and encouraged me every step of the way to get this completed. How lucky I am to have met such amazing people. 
> 
> Gah. I’m getting emotional. On with the final chapter.

They sit six feet apart, legs swinging from atop the desks they once sat at too many years ago. It’s been quiet since she walked in, finding him already there and correcting a leftover equation on the chalkboard. Neither of them seem keen to take the first step. The minutes stretch on and on, and her mind has drifted to places that are supposed to be locked away, memories holding her captive of another life.

Peter shifts, mouth opening and closing, but whatever he has to say doesn’t make it past his throat.

“Why am I here?” 

She’s looking at him but she’s asking herself. Why invite her here only to stay silent? What could he be so desperate to say after so long of nothing?

Peter can’t look up from his own lap so her gaze drifts to the desk where they’d had sex for the first time. She’s such a different person now, the Michelle that had last left this room just a ghost of her pain that’s taken four years to heal. Yet despite that, she’s still plagued by this uncertainty of events that affected her life but were beyond her control. No matter how much time passes - four years, forty years, for _ ever _ \- she’s going to want answers from him. How could she not?

“I honestly don’t know.” Peter wipes at his brow and kicks off of the table, pacing to his left. “I didn’t think you’d actually show up.”

She tracks him as he turns and walks the other way, fingers in his hair. “But you came anyway.”

“Of course I did.” He’s stopped to look at her, something too heavy in his expression that has her studying the scuffs on her new boots. “So what do you want to know?”

“What do I want to know?” She huffs out a humourless laugh. “Where do you want me to start?”

“You wanted to know where I was all that time, right?” Peter’s stopped pacing but his leg is bouncing out a fast rhythm, his voice shifting an octave. Is he nervous? What is he so scared of? She’s just Michelle Jones, the girl who refused to be left behind.

“No,” she says, reminding herself to be calm. “I just wanted you to be honest with me.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

It’s too little, too late, but she bites her lip and takes a breath. “So say it then.”

“Okay.” Peter turns his back to her, wringing his fingers. Time stretches once more between them, the stress making her head pound. She’s on the verge of collecting herself and walking out when he whispers; “I was the only one who could do it.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s what he said to me.” 

Peter’s shoulders relax from his ears, and when he comes towards her, his eyes are open, vulnerable. He’s letting her in, finally, but it doesn’t feel much like a victory.

“Who told you that?” she prompts when he pauses too long.

“Nick Fury.” Her hearing pricks up at the name, quiet memories of whispered traumas in the middle of a plane ride home returning to her now. “At first I was just hiding out, waiting for… Something. Anything. A fancy team of people far more capable of the things that mattered were working on it and I was told not to move or talk or  _ exist _ , and then, the day before you caught me in your room, I woke up to Fury sitting in the corner - except it wasn’t Fury, not really, but he had a message from the  _ real _ Fury…”

She wants to smooth out the creases of his forehead with her thumb. She wants to pull him into her arms and never let go. She wants to erase the last few years and go back to when their biggest problem was finding the courage to tell each other how they felt - but she can’t, and it pains her because it so clearly pains him. She has to remind herself that they aren’t who they once were; she’s nothing to him anymore, and it’s not her place to fix him.

“Something bad was going to happen. Something really, really bad. He asked me to go on this mission, do things that no regular agent had the skill set for. I was eighteen and had  _ nothing _ , and he gave me an out of my situation - just for a week, he told me. So I said yes, even though I had this feeling it wasn’t going to be as simple as he made it out to be.”

Michelle nods to herself as she absorbs everything he’s telling her, trying to match it up to her own timeline. “That’s why you came to say goodbye.”

“I didn’t want to go without one last memory. Just in case.” Peter sits beside her, exhausted already. “I was right not to trust his assurances. It took a long time before I was even on the right side of the world again. Someone spotted me and it was all over the internet before I could even make it back to see you guys. May was furious and Ned was too quiet and you… You didn’t answer your phone - scared me half to death.

“After that, I knew I needed to keep a closer eye on you all.” Peter interrupts her before she can speak. “I know, it was wrong to essentially spy on you. But I don’t regret it. I could never, not after I found people following you after that night I stayed over. I was too deep with Fury by then, and I knew the best way to keep you all safe was to remove myself from the equation - go completely off the grid, so bad people couldn’t use and hurt the people I love.

“Eventually, the mission ended and I thought I was free. I was so ready to get back to my life, and then some bad people found me and I got hurt - I was fine, I swear, but Fury had me taken to Wakanda and I couldn’t leave for a little while. Eventually, I came home and it was just like the last time. May was furious, Ned was too quiet, and you… You were so  _ mad _ at me, and you had every right, but it was so good to see you again that I… I never meant to take advantage of you on any of my visits. It’s not what I came back for. I just wanted to see you all of the time, and sometimes I could resist and others… The way I felt after seeing you every time, it was addictive. A little slice of normality and hope in the middle of the chaos of my life. I was so alone for so long, and even though I could see how I was hurting you more and more every time, I was selfish. I just couldn’t help myself. I’m so sorry, MJ.”

“Peter,” she says, voice thick with the tears that stream down her face, “Please. Stop apologising.”

His hand hovers between them. She doesn’t know if she wants him to find the courage to touch her.

“Never. Not after what came next.”

A sob jolts through her body and she turns away towards the window. Her skin is on fire but she feels ice cold, the shards of her heart perforating her insides until her grief for a night she could never let go of has bled into every last cell of her body. She doesn’t want to talk about Halloween. She can’t bear the thought of reliving it through his eyes, the one blip of happiness in the black hole of her misery.

“If anything comes from tonight, I hope it’s that you know just how much Ned and May adore you. They moved heaven and Earth to find me, and when I climbed through your window that night… You were so  _ happy _ , and it’s like I hadn’t realised the toll of my own actions until you lay there in my arms and even in your sleep, you held me so tight. It’s like you were afraid I would leave - and I realised you were justified in that fear, because it’s all I’d done to you, every time. I  _ left _ you, every time. Even when I knew how much it hurt you.

“Time got away from me. What was supposed to be a week turned into four years of missions and fights and excuses, even after you chose to stop being the one left behind and be the one who left. I was blinded by the person I had unwittingly become, and I was so hurt despite everything being my fault. I thought keeping you in the dark would keep you safe. I thought keeping you safe was more important than your happiness. It took me a while to realise how wrong I was about that. I thought about telling you as such, but I saw you one night leaving Ned’s apartment still laughing at whatever joke he’d told you and I realised that was just me being selfish again. You could be safe  _ and  _ happy without me.”

“So you stayed away.”

“I stayed away.”

Michelle wipes at her puffy cheeks and tilts her body to see him wiping away tears of his own. It spills out of her before she can try to control it.

“I waited for you for three years. After we broke up, I waited again - I thought you’d come back for so long, even as the months stretched into a year. My anger faded and then I was just… Empty. Turns out, loving a boy despite it all is not something that’s easy to get over. But there was this part of me that kept pushing on, forcing me to stay on the track I’d worked so hard to forge. You hurt me, yes, but under all the pain and the heartache, you were my friend, and learning how to live a life that had been so cruelly taken from you felt like the best way to honour that friendship. So I kept my head down and I worked; for myself, yes, but also for you.” Michelle lets him take her hand, something in her falling back into place as he squeezes her fingers. “Everything about us was a mess. We were doomed from the start by circumstances outside of our control.”

“There’s so much I would do differently,” he says, voice cracking as more tears swell in his bloodshot eyes. “I wish I could take it all back.”

“I know.” Michelle finally manages to smile. “But you can’t, and that’s okay. I forgave you a long time ago.”

Peter shuffles closer. When his head lands on her shoulder, the weight that’s sat there for four long years is gone. 

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“Maybe so, but you have it anyway.”

* * *

They talk for a long time about things that matter and things that don’t. 

She leaves with the first rays of the summer sun, and for the first time she feels ready to put the story of them back on the shelf, finally complete.

Breakfast in hand, she knocks on the door of Ned’s apartment and brushes aside his concern of her swollen eyes when he answers. Ned doesn’t ask what happened, just pulls her into a hug that could heal the universe. Maybe he knows already, or maybe he can just tell, but he leads her to the sofa, calls in sick to work, and lets her fall asleep with her head in his lap, finally at peace.

* * *

Shortly after their six month anniversary, Ethan breaks up with her.

“You’re great, but we want different things,” he tells her kindly, a warm hand on her shoulder.

Michelle doesn’t cry for him. It hasn’t been right between them for a while now, neither of them focused enough on the relationship. There’s been this doubt lingering in the back of her mind that she’s resisted giving a voice to, but when the door closes behind Ethan she hears it, whispering to her in her mother’s voice. 

Ethan is perfect for someone out there; what a pity that person isn’t Michelle.

Michelle gets a promotion and moves out of her parent’s apartment into one of her own, three blocks away from Ned. They hang out all the time, have keys to each other’s apartments, and Michelle dutifully befriends each of Ned’s short-lived girlfriends until they go out one night and bump into none other than Betty Brant.

The trio sit at a table for hours catching up, until Michelle leaves to use the bathroom and returns to see she hasn’t been missed at all.

They barely notice her return, or when she quietly slips on her jacket and steps out into the night, returning to her apartment with a knowing smile.

Of all the people she’s known and all the people she won’t, Ned Leeds deserves his own happy ending. 

* * *

Her coat drips into her open bag as she roots around for her keys, muttering obscenities as she instead finds gum and tampons and how did her lipstick get in here? She’s been looking for it for weeks. Her shoes squelch against the linoleum stairs of the communal hallway, and finally, nestled behind her discarded scarf and the case for the glasses that sit perched on her nose, she roots out the faded keyring that holds her access to Ned’s apartment.

Climbing the final few steps, Michelle turns out of the stairwell and towards the door marked 67, only to discover someone else waiting there.

“Oh! MJ. Hi.” Peter smiles at her a little awkwardly, waving the hand not holding the small, rain sodden cardboard box.

“Hey, Peter.” Michelle presses her lips together and nods towards the door. “Is Ned not home?”

“Haven’t actually knocked yet.” He chuckles, chest expanding with his inhale beneath his dark shirt. “I guess I don’t need to, now.”

“Oh! Sure.” She squeezes past him to unlock the door, fingers shaking slightly from the early winter chill that has settled over the city. She tugs the door towards her and twists hard the way Ned had taught her last year, the lock giving way so suddenly she almost stumbles over the doorstep. “Ned? You here?”

“MJ! I was just about to call you,” Ned jogs out from the direction of his bedroom, fiddling with the zipper of his hoodie. “I forgot I was out of dip after Saturday and - Oh!”

He stops short at the sight before him, eyes bouncing between the pair until they rest on Michelle to scream a silent question.

She diverts to the kitchen, putting down the grocery bag that houses the dip she’d already remembered.

“Peter and MJ. You’re both here. Together. At the same time.” Ned stutters like a skipping record, stuck on one note. “What? Why?”

“I bumped into her outside.” Peter walks to the living room, footsteps fading as Michelle stubbornly keeps her back turned to hide her flushed cheeks. “I was just dropping these textbooks off. Thanks again for the loan.”

“No problem, anytime, dude.”

“I’ll get out of your hair,” Peter says, clapping his hands together and making back to the door. “We still on for game night on Friday?”

“Absolutely,” Ned goes to answer, but he’s interrupted by Michelle blurting out, “We’re about to watch a Nicholas Cage marathon, if you wanna stay.”

Both boys freeze in place, staring at her as she internally panics over how to take back words already spoken. “Uhh…”

“That’s… That’s a great idea.” Ned squeezes Peter’s shoulder, his gaze watching her to check she’s still functioning. “We’d love to have you, man.”

“I don’t know…”

“MJ found a drinking game online, and there’s plenty of beers in the fridge.”

“Or I bought vodka,” Michelle chirps up, holding up the glass bottle from inside the paper bag. Now she’s had a second to think about it, she’s weirdly okay with spending the evening with her best friend and her ex-boyfriend. Maybe she’s just indulging in nostalgia, but it even sounds like it might be fun.

“Sure. Okay. Sounds great.” Peter smiles at her from across the room and when she smiles back, she finds it doesn’t hurt. 

Ned is almost vibrating off the floor in his excitement, but he bites his lip and thankfully acts normal, walking into the kitchen to collect beer and snacks.

_ You okay?  _ he mouths when Peter turns his back to toe off his shoes.

Michelle smiles again because yeah, she really is.

* * *

Peter falls asleep halfway through the second movie. As punishment, they play a game of who can secure the most popcorn in his hair.

She wins, of course. Ned reluctantly hands over ten dollars before kicking Peter’s chair until he jolts awake, bleary eyes taking in the array of kernels around him in confusion.

“Alright, I’m tapping out,” she announces after her laughter has faded away, belly warm from the feeling of a good time. “Tomorrow is my first day off in over a week and I plan on sleeping in until at least noon.”

Peter jumps up from clearing away the mess they’d blamed on him. “Me too. Not the day off thing, but uh, I’m going to go as well.”

“Alright, weirdo.” Michelle shrugs on her still damp jacket and collects her bag, ruffling Ned’s hair as she passes by. “I’ll text you tomorrow, okay?”

“No sweat,” Ned says as he follows them to the front door, and a few minutes later Peter and Michelle step out into the night.

“Can I uh, can I walk you home?” he asks quietly.

Michelle looks over to him in surprise, then settles her expression into one of indifference. “I can take care of myself, Peter.”

His blush is obvious even under the golden glow of the streetlights. “I know. That’s not why I asked.”

“Then why did you ask?” Peter’s biting his lip and her jaw drops. “Oh. Uh, sure. That sounds… Fine.”

The walk back to her apartment is short but filled by Peter enthusiastically telling her all about his internship, now finished with his college degree. They get stopped once by a tourist who recognises him, and Peter is relaxed as he poses for a photo and high fives the two kids that stare up at him adoringly, demonstrating the web shooters wrapped around his wrists to the gasps and awe of the whole family. 

Michelle feels that warmth in her stomach again at the sight of Peter finally settled into his life. All she’s ever wanted for him to be is happy, and she can see just from this one evening that he’s found it all by himself.

Only moments later they’re in front of her door, Michelle gripping the keys she’s found once again.

“This was fun,” Peter says, voice impossibly soft.

The smile that hasn’t left her face all night curls up a little higher. “Yeah, it was.”

“Kinda like old times, when you’d both come over to mine and make me study.”

“Someone had to care about your GPA.” Michelle laughs when Peter pulls a displeased face. “Maybe… Maybe we can do it again?”

Peter lights up like the Rockefeller Christmas tree. “Really? Yeah, that’d be great.”

“Awesome.” Michelle finds her door key and shudders out an exhale. “I should probably -”

“Oh, yeah.”

“- Go inside, yeah, okay.” Michelle slots the key into the lock and pushes it open, pausing in her step to turn back and say, “Goodnight, Peter.”

“Goodnight, MJ.”

Peter hesitates before darting forward and pressing a lingering kiss to her cheek, her face instantly heating up with the wattage of her smile.

Something light and bright and familiar blossoms in her chest as she steps inside, exploding into the prettiest array of fireworks as she glances back to see Peter walking away with a skip in his step and a grin wide enough to be reflected by the people passing by.

For the first time, watching him disappear into the bustling crowds, she doesn’t feel like the girl left behind.

It doesn’t feel like an ending.

This time, it feels just like a new beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought! Did you enjoy the answers? Was Peter redeemed a little bit? How satisfying was the ending? 
> 
> @mjonesing on Tumblr as always!

**Author's Note:**

> @mjonesing on Tumblr as always


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